We've been working with shortages for some time prior to the disaster, and we are just now getting into racing season for the Rocky Mountain, Midwest, and Great Lakes Regions, as well as the new Texas region. That's a lot of racers to "feed." I know of 7 racers in the Midwest off the top of my head who own one set usable of tires, or less, including myself. Chuck has posted he has at least 3 guys waiting for tires right now. It's the nature of a budget class to not be able to afford stockpiles of tires. For myself, the tires I had went with the cars I sold over the winter. There are several racers who built new cars this year, who will not be able to race within two weeks without a tire option. These guys, like Ken who has the 20+ page build thread, have had tires on order, but none to be had.
Before I posted this up, I made many calls, and got through to most of the series directors. We've grown pretty big, and we need a lot of tires, nationwide!
I understand the concern, and it's a crappy situation, but the numbers just don't come close to working out. We've been following this for a while, try to maximize what we have, but doing nothing is really not an option at this point. Our initial plan was to utilize other sizes, and the R-888, but after looking at current dismal numbers/availability of those tires, that doesn't buy any significant amount of time. Forcing a few guys to scrounge for leftover, unloved R-888's, and then opening up the rules so the next guy can buy something else a few weeks later is not a great solution. We've seen this problem progress pretty quickly, because reserves were pretty low. Frankly, we're already behind the eight ball here.
The only temporary solution that buys a significant amount of time staying on Toyos, is to allow 205 RA-1's & R-888's, but that supply may well not last until Nationals.
There is an option to maintain both regional, and national contingencies by Spec'ing a Hoosier SM6 tire, that is about $175/each, but that was shot down by the series directors for the reasons outlined in the first post.
Yes, some of the RM guys are already have NT-01's for a variety of reasons, but those are coming into short supply as well, and I don't want to make another tire rule change later in the year, especially closer to Nationals, and it doesn't help the contingency issue. It is a nice silver lining that we will be bringing those guys back into the fold this year with the current proposal.
On the 16" option, 16" x 6 or 7" OEM wheels (phone dial, sewer plate style, etc.) are out there for around $300, and the 16" Michelins are about $200 cheaper than the other options, outside of the remaining Nittos. That said, it may well not be needed to meet our needs, and does complicate things.
Keep the thoughts coming - maybe there is still a better solution out there!
. Hopefully NASA and Toyo come through on the contingency stuff so we at least get some benefit of being a Toyo class with their stickers all over our cars (even if we're running other tires out of necessity).
