FF Spec Tires

[Lynn]

It appears that FF will be going to a spec tire for 2016. The speculation is that it will be a Hoosier radial in the R60 compound. This raises several questions. As CM FF's are required to be GCR legal, will we be required to use the spec tire next year? I know that many of us will be ordering or have ordered new tires for Nationals and plan on using them next year. What about rain tires? I'm about to order wheels and rain tires. Do we want to use whatever the the club racers use or possibly ask the CRB to use different spec tires such as the American Racer slicks or the Toyo 888? Or do we ask to keep the status quo? Perspiring mimes want to know.

[Barry Ott]

Good questions!

The Solo rules say that "1. Spec tire requirements do not apply", so we're free to run whatever we want.

But, it's a good discussion to have if we *want* to run the spec tires. I wonder if the availability of our current slicks will be impacted by the change to a spec tire for our Road Racing brothers????? Avons are an option??? Not sure about rains??? I'm afraid that some of the older cars will have challenges getting the needed camber for the spec tire. Also, with Solo Vee's in CM too, who aren't effected by a comparable spec tire, would choosing to run the spec tire make the performance balance between the two groups of cars change enough to effect classing???

For next year, I'm guessing we'll be ok running slicks as we are now but things might get interesting after that???

I'm hoping to talk to the Hoosier guys at Nats to get their feel on the situation.

[Barry Ott]

....and one more thing, I'm wondering if the Spec tires will be faster than R25Bs?? That would make things really interesting.

[CM/FFdriver]

From someone that has just come off hoosier A6 tires the R25B race tire is faster, I don't know about the American Racer slicks but the Toyo 888 are not close, there even behind the hoosier A6. I agree with Barry about "I'm afraid that some of the older cars will have challenges getting the needed camber for the spec tire" because I was told by the Avon tire rep's that -3.0 degree's of camber is not unheard of for their radial tire.

#1 If we had to go spec tire like the Hoosier Bias R60 I believe it wouldn't make any difference mainly because you would have a set of R60 for everyday events and then a fresh set for the National's, isn't this what we do now?

#2 and not a big deal but the Pax number would change big time, unless you have 125 degree track temps with a co-driver.

Ben