Guys, it has become clear that Toyos will not be available in any significant quantity this year. The current shipment to Phil's Tire is held up in California, as well. I talked with John Lindsey this morning, and have been given the green light to change the tire rule for the class, for this year.

My goals with this, are to keep the RA-1 competitive, but allow an adequate supply of tires through the end of the year, without having to hunt them down across the country. As R-888's, and NT-01's are also made in Sendai, they alone do not meet our needs.

My proposal is to reference the Performance Touring rules, and allow any tire in the same "+7 points" performance category as the RA-1, with a maximum width of 225mm. Here is the relevant section quoted from the PT rules:



This would include the NT-01, though remaining stocks of that tire are low, and it is made in the same Sendai plant. While the V700's are not available in a 15" size, the Victoracers are.

This should alleviate any supply issues, and keep the current RA-1's competitive.

Allowing Hoosier/Hankook/BFG tires would make RA-1's instantly non-competitive, and is not a good option, IMO. On the other end of things, allowing street tires gets very messy (hard to define, and very broad scope).

One issue is that other than remaining NT-01s, none of these tires are very cheap - somewhere around $180/tire or more. I do see that the Tire Rack has Michelin Pilot Sport Cups at $130/tire, but only in a 205/55/16" size. Allowing 16" rims, still limited to a 225mm tire width, may be an option as it would open up more tires (many are not available in a 15" size), but that would need to be thought through some more.

This would be a one year exception, with plans to return to the RA-1's next year, providing they become available again.

I want to wrap this up within the next 48 hours, and the choice is ours, so give me your thoughts!

This has been cross posted to the NASA forums.

I am all for ANY change to keep our guys supplied with rubba. Good call on the rule. I likey.

Erik I appreciate your desire to get this out of the way but Making a decision without knowledge of inventory for any of the tires listed above is a bad idea.

Let's allow the 225-45-15 RA-1, R888 in 45 and 50 and the Nitto NT01 in 45 and 50 for now and come up with a better plan with out the rush to judgement.

We should find out how many 225-50-15 RA-1 are coming in. How many 225-45-15 RA-1 are in USA.

The 205/50-15 is the Spec Miata and Spec e-30 tire as I recall. If we start using that tire any one with the 225 will have an advantage. Those are sure to run out as well.

Thank you for listening and working on this diligently even while on vacation.

Charlie, I asked John for nationwide availability on all those sizes of R-888's and RA-1's, and they are not pretty. At all. I am not at liberty to disclose numbers, but suffice to say that orders are outpacing the existing supply. There are no more in ships or warehouses, only the small supply in ground transit now. The original plan was similar to what you've proposed, but the numbers don't support it now.

There are more 205 RA-1's, and R-888's, but not enough to be comfortable given the huge demand for them from NASA & SCCA SM's & to a much lesser extent, SE30's. I don't want to have to make another change later this year.

The Tire Rack has 225/50/15 Victoracers in stock. This is more than we can say for the current options, and many racers need tires within 2 weeks!

Thanks for the input, through!

Erik,

Thank you for working on this and keeping it out in the open.

Given the situation at hand, I think your proposal is as good as it gets.

Thinking ahead, how will this affect Toyo contingencies? Will Toyo still pay out Toyo bucks and Nationals contingencies for the class? Will Toyo extend Toyo bucks until new tires are available?

I realize those concerns are secondary to getting people tires but are important considerations that John should be talking to Toyo about. Since NASA and Toyo have a partnership, I would think Toyo needs to step up in this area.

NASA is working with Toyo on these issues, but in the short term we cannot count on contingencies if we are no longer a Spec tire class. At Nationals, there are contingencies for non-spec classes, but at a lower rate.