What we really need to lower foam prices is a boycott. It is not feasable, but if we could get everyone in the RC world to stop buying foam tires for a period of time, the price would have to go down. Again, it couldn't be done, but it would be cool. Right now, the companies have us wrapped around thier finger because they know that if we want to race ( which is an addiction for most of us) we will constantly need to buy tires. It's a need!! So, they are free to charge whatever they want, because there is no competion and we can't go outside and pick foam tires off trees!
There is some hope brought to us by EBAY. I know that some of those "cheap" tires on there work just as well as TRC's and JACO's etc. Put on some traction compound and they work all the same, well, at least at the track where I race. Which brings me to another topic, traction compound. Must we sacrafice wear life for 5 minutes of good traction? To get maximum grip a new coat of traction compund is needed every run and that shortens foam life drastically.
Let's boycott foams and see if we can lower the prices!