Tire Issues

[Suck fumes]

They can't disqualify all of us haha

[GlennCMC70]

Surely we all realize we are talking about 2015, right?

[kbrewmr2]

seems like a decent spec tire to me
http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticl...-review.aspx?3

[Suck fumes]

Wow I want to try them! Maybe we can persuade them to add AI and CMC to their contingency list for next year.

[Fbody383]

I really don't care about an Outlaw class. I want to run CMC and if we can all agree to a tire I will be happy to go with the rest of you.

I'm not sure what "CMC" is if all of us just agree to run the NT01. According to the contingency... there wouldn't be any. In practice, NASA could just say "no, you can't grid a car on NT01's in CMC for points."

Al/Glenn/Will/Dave B. - what's the proper way to get the Texas contingent views expressed nationally to see what the rest of the CMC folks think and bring it to HQ?

I need tires for 2015. If there are at least 5 or 6 cars that are willing to run in legit CMC trim on NT01s, I don't necessarily care if that's in Thunder or a PTX group.

[AI#97]

Oh, I forgot another one I tried.


Kumho V710.....could not manage any faster times than the V1 RA1's. LIfe sucked but had the victoracer as a rain.

The Maxxis is interesting but they don't have a rain tire. They were also supposed to release the 275/40/17 in May....not yet available. It's getting compared to the NT-01's for life and a little faster.

[kbrewmr2]

Wow I want to try them! Maybe we can persuade them to add AI and CMC to their contingency list for next year.

AIX, ST, PT (which any of your cars could fit) are already listed and they start good payouts at very small field sizes...

I'm probably going to be a life-long Hoosier guy, but, Maxxis sure seems to be trying to win people over with this sorta stuff and it seems to be working Wonder if you could redeem for trailer tires? :-X

[Trublu]

Picking up on Jerry's post in Mike's hijacked for sale post. I used to team rope and show cutting horses. Both payback a percentage of the entry fees (25-40%) as prize money and some usually included added money on top of that to attract more entrants. The new endurance series WRL seems to be following this approach. Beats the bejesus out of contingency money but then again I'm more in the crowd that enjoys hanging out and racing more than what tires I'm doing it on. I just hope this whole deal doesn't result in less folks I enjoy hanging out with at the track

[BryanL]

Couple of HSO's to throw out.

People are so upset with Toyo but want to buy a Nitto-they are the same company. I think you have to look at why they sponsor with NASA and why they make a certain tire. They are a business and have a goal in mind. I don't believe that goal is to make a tire that doesn't last so they can sell more race tires. Now maybe they are trying to make a tire that is faster as that is what the larger racing market wants. I'm sure they are aware of their competition and what kind of product Hoosier, BFG, etc put out. Would they sell more of a tire if it was 1 second slower than a Hoosier or 5 seconds slower than a Hoosier? Would they want to sponsor a class that doesn't run a fast tire? (Think back to why Ford didn't want the S197 detuned so much that a 79 Mustang/82 Camaro was beating it on track) Is their NASA sponsorship just part of their overall marketing/advertising budget and should they even care about CMC? If I'm working at TOYO I'm pretty certain CMC would never even be a reason to make any sort of decision.

Just using some simple swag math pertaining to CMC. I'm pretty sure there are less than 50 total CMC cars racing around a full season. If each racer buys 2 sets of tires per season that is 400 tires they sell in a year. If we assume that they sell the tire to the distributors less shipping of $200 per tire. A 20% profit margin means they make $40 per tire. $40 times 400 comes out to a whopping $16,000 in profit. Say each racer buys 4 sets for a season they ring the register for $32,000!!!! But wait-they have contingency's to pay out. They payout around $1,350 per Texas race weekend-likely less in other regions with less cars. But I'll guess 6 weekends in only 3 regions is $24,300. Then you have regional champ prize money and Nat. prize money of around $7,000. Gets pretty close to breakeven. Though I haven't a clue about how much they pay NASA HQ to sponsor everything nor what percentage might be attributable to CMC. I'm also not in the tire business so I may not have a clue about their true numbers. But I think I can still figure out that with the number of CMC racers and the amount of tires they purchase that it certainly doesn't warrant any resources or time being allocated from a corporate level for something that there is no way they could even make $50k.

So what do we do. Well this is America so you can do whatever you want. I'll still be going to the track, racing, hanging out and having a great time is what I hope to do. I'm all in for agreeing to run a different tire with the hope that it would actually last longer yet still make the car fun to drive and the racing just as fun. I will hate that someone isn't able to race because of the tire budget but there are so many more variables to consider when determining that "budget" from per race weekend entry/fuel/tire/carnage, car purchase, equipment/tool purchase, tow vehicle, trailer, etc. etc. to buying a boat, plane, kart, bike, rv, jeep, kids college or whatever that it really isn't the biggest reason why someone doesn't race. It just so happens that the tire budget isn't way off from what it costs for your yearly entry fees, or your yearly gas, or your yearly consumables/carnage, etc. Realize I have a new perspective on this whole shebang after having a car totaled. Which leads me to another thought in my head is that if you can't afford the tire budget, then you probably shouldn't be racing at all. Unfortunately because one should be ready to stomach totaling your car or being able to help someone if you tear up their car.

I"m sorry if I ruffled anyones feathers or anything. If we want to give a new tire a try let me know which one gets the most votes and I'll buy a set to run at TWS and ECR with Friday practices hopefully and see how it stands up for heat cycles. I would love to find anyway that would help lower the cost for everyone. Otherwise I'll either order a set of RA1's or just finish the year on old junk tires. I do worry that we really don't have any apples to apples comparison's for any of the other tires to see if they can really hold up to say 3 race weekends with 25 heat cycles. I have no problem gridding as an AIX car on whatever tire it is -whether I'm the only car in AIX or if all 20 CMC cars decide to run AIX on xyz tire.

[mach1]

I'll mount up some NT01's and spray paint TOYO RA1 on the side, that should do it....