Originally Posted by
reidhazelton
I am not getting into another tire debate, but this one is the same as all the past ones. There is no consensus, just unrealistic expectations with no real tire vote on.
So far, we want a tire that is less than $600, lasts a season (how long is that?) with no drop off with heat cycles, requires minimal changes to the car, also doubles as a rain tire, is unaffected by shaving, etc. There is nothing here to vote on but a wish. If that tire existed, then hell yeah let's do it. But it doesn't.
Simple: any hard compound tire. R60, whatever the GY used to be that doesn't exist, American Racer, Toyo, whatever. Done.
Every option will have drawbacks. It's a matter of if the perceived savings (we really don't know what that will be, so it is a guess) will be greater than the negatives.
Pick a tire, go with it, and live with the pros and cons.
PS. What is all this crap ragging on Hoosier? They have the lion's share of the market because the earned it. Look at the total crap GY brough to the Runoffs the 4 years before they pulled out. Do you want to run that? They own the market because the make the best product, and to start labeling them as price gougers is very unfair. GY pulled out because they could not make a profit, and their tires were very close in price to Hoosier. Go price a set of Avons, they cost about the same also. I am fairly certain tires are made from oil....and oil prices have gone up proportionality more than Hoosier tires have. Also, they do R&D on their stuff, real R&D before the bring it out. Trust me. The new formula tire the came up with AFTER GY left. They had no reason to make a better (more consistent) tire, but they did. I think we can at least thank them for that. Personally, I think we should be happy anyone makes anything for road racing, especially open wheel road racing. Guys, we are like 5% of the racing world here, and I am happy we don't all have to run around on mini-sprint or dirt stocker tires.