i spoke w/a friend last nite bout 4wd mod for this spring and we discussed this tire deal. i race 18th touring right now and its a good thing the tires are so cheap (6/pr) b/c u go thru em.
but we talked bout offroad tires. the $ is rough but our deal, but i think i should say how annoyin it was to find a tire that worked round after round, whether the track was prepped, repaired, swept, etc. i have an entire toolbox filled w/tires for 2wd. and it seemed it was a big guessin game...to the point of when the last truggy crossed the line in qualifying, it looked like the next rd of 2wd mod b/c EVERY driver was out on the track tryin tires.
so a control tire eh? well thats a great idea to minimize what all you have to carry. but u can counter with fact that people are just goin to buy more tires b/c newer 1s handle better and thus faster. so could end up if shop is out of tires, have's vs have not's. but its that way now to find that 1 hot tire, even if it only lasts 1 rd. now u think most wouldnt do such a thing for club races, but i guess we're all guilty of wanting to go fast.
even had a situation 2yrs back when a track had a control, and it was specified that the set was to be used all day. well a few of the hot dogs went out and in 1st rd put in times good enuff to get them into the show, maybe not TQ, but in. then sat rd2, others saw this and sat rd3. to point where only 2 cars in both heats went out (includin a father/son duo who were runnin for fun and didnt understand all the hub-bub bout the tires).
it was a disaster b/c u ended up w/many levels of bad vibe.
they tried the following wk to set 2 sets of tires for day, figurin folks would go 2n2. well similar deal in that guys went out and ran all 3rds on 1 set, and if they were not improvin their times in rd2 or rd3, they'd pull off and go back to the pits and begin servicing their car before having to marshall. 1 heat got real lucky b/c they didnt have to marshall after every1 in the following race sat out. sheesh at that pt lets just have a 20min race all in 1 shot, then go home.
like the thoughts back n 4th, and i have done some onroad both rubber and foam and some classes are worse on tires than others. but as long as we racers have this thirst, whether active or passive or repressed , i believe we're all just contributin to the issue.
R