WHY a tire rule?

[georgep]

Why can't you just use a durometer and say that the tire COLD can not be BELOW a reading? This would end all the tiregate that I read about.
My tires on the vinatge reading is 45 cold on the rear and 32 cold on the front. These are Hoosier LEFT OVERS off line for $60.00 each, I think they are about $85.00 now.
Let the guys get the best price they can for tires and just check them.
I will get shot down in flames BUT that is my $.02

[Todd McCreary]

to many tracks are in the tire selling business, not the racing business.

[chassisdude]

If you have a tire rule for these hard tires I'm talking about it helps in two ways. First is just the cost of keeping tires on a car, A guy can run many weeks competitively with out having to buy tires every week. The second is just as important as the saving money part and that is the high dollar, big horsepower guys have to try to hook-up all there power to the track through the hard tire. I'm just saying this is a way to level the field of cars with the big motors having a harder time getting all the power to the ground and a lower budget team can race again because they can run there tires for 6 to 8 nights before having to buy tires again. I have seen it, and know that it can work...

[AJ14]

You won't ever hear any sane reason for not having an open tire rule . The track owners have wedged themselves into the middle of the race tire selling process , and they aren't going down without a fight . Or really just an ignore .
One track , Putnam , saw the wisdom of letting the drivers make their own tire decisions , and i don't know of one driver who has complained about it .
Goodyear , Firestone , All American , BF Goodrich , Hoosier are all out there with race tires that will work on any track . All it takes is track owners who really are interested in keeping car counts up . And they have to own a durometer and know how to use it . One blowhard track owner i could name should be the first to jump at this .
The other option is to adopt the tires that chassisdude talked about . They apparently work great , last forever , geez , whats not to like .

[The Ocala Speedway]

"The track owners have wedged themselves into the middle of the race tire selling process , and they aren't going down without a fight"

I don't sell the tires at my track man. Haven't since we went dirt.

[AJ14]

Mike , since you own a track , and you say you don't sell tires , lets hear your take on open tire rules . Why shouldn't the racers have the option of choosing which brand of tire they want ( as long as it fits the rules and the durometer ) just as they have the option of choosing which motor oil or which brand of wheel they use ? You have the respect of a lot of competitors and track owners , i'd like to hear your views .

[The Ocala Speedway]

When we were asphalt I was trying to figure out a way to implement a rule allowing the drivers to buy only one tire or two tires per race event. I couldn't find a way to stop them from buying tires at other tracks and showing up with them. Towards the end of our asphalt tenure I was looking at a stamp to verify the tires were from us. Then I thought that was defeating the purpose and forcing drivers to only buy at our place even if they didn't need to. Whether it's open tire rule or not it's not fixing the problem. The problem in (MY OPINION) is going through to many tires driving up the cost to race. I think it's more important to be on a hard long lasting tire and combine that with a tire limit purchase rule. Stop pre-race track rentals. Cut back on practice on race day. In theory limit the laps put on the tires and they won't need to buy as many. This will have a domino effect. It takes $$$ and HP more out of the equation and gives the self funded teams a better chance. I think the best option is to get every asphalt track in the state to go to the hardest longest lasting tire they can find and then include a one or two tire per week rule on top of it. You'd be surprised how cutting back on the practice and track time will effect the longevity for the drivers. I know we're dirt BUT we give each division 4 laps on race day that's it. We don't see motors blowing like we did on asphalt along with other mechanical failures that just come from use and abuse. If everyone running the same tire is not an option I guess the next option would be to open up the tire rule and go with the punch rule. When drivers are beat by a tire other than the one their running they will feel the need to have that tire. It's just the competitive nature.

Dirt is a very different scenario. There's enough different dirt tires out there to make your head spin. On dirt it's not necessarily an issue of wear. It's too many different compounds, sidewalls, textures, rubbers and so on. A tire might punch the same but have a stiffer or softer sidewall effecting performance. The rubber might be natural vs synthetic and still punch the same. My goal on dirt has been to run what the majority run so the drivers can just come race without having to buy track specific tires. Right now the late model D21 & D55 is good at Ocala, NFS, Putnam, East Bay, Volusia, NLMS, and the UDLMCS. The biggest cost I've found to the dirt drivers is not the number of tires to purchase weekly, however the soaking involved. Some of these guys are like chemist and have figured out how to soak the tires so they punch what they should before the race and soften up during the race. They soak the inside of the tires. It's costly and time consuming. The last two late model races we have really started cracking down on this to include determining a number the tires shouldn't punch below after the race. Nobody could tell me what that number is so we've been doing our own testing and will soon have a number for the start of the race and after. There's my opinion. We do sell tires by the way. I don't. We have a parts person that sells the tires on his own.

[georgep]

Want to control tires, JUST STAMP them the first night they are there and have a rule that THAT TIRE MUST BE USED for x weeks. If it is cut then STAMP the new one. If you ever noticed there are maeking son some tires as made for a series, ASCS is one. YOu CAN control the cost by just limiting how many races they MUST RUN on the same RR.
Formula one you must run x races on a motor. Nascar limits trucks to "X" tires per weekend. They need to change a tire fine have it punched and stamped.
Tire soaking is as old as racing. I MAKE a non detechable treatment that will drop the reading by 20 points when hot and back to normal when cold.
You will never find it EXCEPT with a mass spec test of the rubber. Back MANY YEARS AGO we used it on slicks for a dirt kart.
The racing game is killing itself a LONG SLOW DEATH. IF the idiots in Washington get all the taxes and changes to the tax law they want it will KILL racing as we know it for sure. If I can not write off my car and equipment as advertisement then I will just get out.

[AJ14]

Thanks for the input Mike , but in the future you'll have to remember to add lots of exclamation points and bouncing emoticons . How can you be taken seriously without that ?
You have some very good points . Keeping racers from buying all the tires they want is a losing battle , they will always find a way . But by opening the tire rule to any tire , at least the competition among tire suppliers will bring the cost down for everyone . I hope you come up with a reliable way to check tires for soaking . Thats one practice that needs to be stopped . Its cheating , and there is no reason for doing it except cheating .
Again , thanks for the input .

[mr south 59]

This device will detect ANYTHING that is on or in your tires. Peroid.......

http://jtreagle.com/

Thats right George, even your prep. If you mount a new tire on an old rim that had prep on it the eagle sniffer will detect it. This is from first hand experiance. This will stop tire soaking at you track but it coast about $15,000.

Soaking isn't illegal everywhere. I don't even know if it is at Ocala. Is it writen in the rules? If it is, how does it say you will be tested. Most tracks have taken soaking out of the rule book because they can't police it. Most tracks just use a durometer number.

[georgep]

This device will detect ANYTHING that is on or in your tires. Peroid.......

http://jtreagle.com/

Thats right George, even your prep. If you mount a new tire on an old rim that had prep on it the eagle sniffer will detect it. This is from first hand experiance. This will stop tire soaking at you track but it coast about $15,000.

Soaking isn't illegal everywhere. I don't even know if it is at Ocala. Is it writen in the rules? If it is, how does it say you will be tested. Most tracks have taken soaking out of the rule book because they can't police it. Most tracks just use a durometer number.

Sorry but since mine is NOT in the petrolem family it will not. There are no means of detecting organic based products other than a mas spec. This is why I do not sell it for that reason. It works but I do not need to make money destroying a hobby I have been in for over 50 years.
I use it on OLD tires I buy for the vintage to get more life out of them (live rubber is the term) Since we do not race for any prize it is not cheating just saving money.
PS I am a Chemist and do own the super sniffer among other toys for our business. It is GREAT to see if a petro based product has been used on leather. You can get that toy for around $9,500.00 if you shop. I got mine 2nd hand for $4,500.00

[The Ocala Speedway]

George why don't you rent that to us for a race or too? We don't allow soaking.

[georgep]

George why don't you rent that to us for a race or too? We don't allow soaking.

I will get it from our field man when he gets back from his rounds. Problem is that I am up in S.C. so a LONG drive to you. Let me get done with my Midwest seminars and get back with you. I would not want any money just have to get it back in my hands.
There are a lot CHEAPER units that will do the samething.

[mr south 59]

When WKA introduced the JTR Eagle the manufacture did a demo and showed how they could calibrated the JTR to detect anything on or in a tire. Coca-cola, milk, liquid soap, baby powder, lip stick, apple juice, ect. Pretty much anything. They put one drop of Simple Green in a 8 oz cup of water and then washed it on a new tire and let dry and that one drop would set off the alarm. They calibrated it for new Maxxis tire rubber and new Dunlop tire rubber would set off the alarm. It could tell one rubber from the other. The manufacture said that once it is calibrated for a certain item that they can detect any foreign object on that item. They could also calibrate it to not pick up certain items at the same time. From what I saw I think I will stick with what the manufacture said the JTR will do.

One of the problems was that a new tire would pass the sniffer and then you would go out on the track and the next time your tires wouldn't pass because of what you would picked up on the track like oil, fuel, ect.

Mike, Do you mean you don't allow soaking tires at the track? LOL. How do you police it? How is it spelled out in the rules?

The touring series that I run we don't have a problem with this. Soaking is NOT allowed and I think it is policed very will. But we do have to buy a set of tires every race.

On a Saturday night show I don't care if you can soak or if you are not allowed to soak. But if the tracks rules say NO SOAKING than the track has to police it to make sure it is not happening just like the rest of the rules. This rule is a little harder to check than a carb or weight percentages. Checking soaking with a durometer is meaningless. That is why most tracks don't have DRY TIRE in their rules anymore.

[OLD STYLE RACER 2]

Tires aint pretty !!!

Prepping/soaking tires is THE biggest reason why we got out of Karts. Plus, don't forget you also had to have the right cut tire. Had to have ATLEAST 3 sets of tires and if you picked the wrong ones, it would be the difference between winning or running in the back. All of that so you could try to win a $6.00 trophy!!!!!