I was just talking to a guy who used to work for Toyo, and he said the manufacturing process is different for race tires than it is for street tires and the two USA plants are not set up for race tires. I would assume from this that all the race tires are made in Japan. They also make tires in China, again not the race tires tho.

Just an update, I got a call early this morning from my primary tire supplier, they received 12 RA-1s in 225/50/15 all but 2 were pre-purchased, out of the 20 I had "on hold" I managed to get 2... the last 2. They aren't expecting any more for 5-6 months!

-Nick

More developments, guys

The tire supply in the "+7" options is much worse than I imagined, for several reasons:

-Old tires with little existing demand/stock
-Few 15"'s available
-Supply chain issues - all Japanese tires

Here's what I have for inventories (verified by calls myself) from the largest retailers.

Tire Rack has 12 Victoracers in stock, no future availability. AO48 - 8 tires, no future availability
Discount Tire has 37 Nittos, 11 inbound, then no future availability.


This was brought up earlier, and I apologize for not investigating this more than looking at websites to this point. At this point, I'm not sure the +7 option is viable through the year, stay tuned....

I know it has been mentioned in this thread, but I want to voice that I like the idea of using Hoosier's too.

I'd like to see us use the R6 or SM6 in 205/50-15. These are great race tires that are fast and well suited to our cars. The price is close to the RA1, though the life would be shorter. Plus there are lots of 205/50-15 takeoffs from the SM guys available cheap.

Hoosier already has a great relationship with NASA and has a great contingency program.

The big issue with using Hoosiers is the performance difference between the RA1s and the R6s. I would vote for additional ballast for anyone running Hoosiers. Some testing would need to be done, but I assume 75-100 lbs would be required.

If we went this route, I would also suggest that at the end of the season we poll the community to discuss returning to Toyos or making Hoosiers our spec tire.

-bj

Lets all switch to Kumho Ecstas!!

Thanks for the time and dilligence Eric. I think at the end of the day whatever solution that is implemented cannot be perfect. Its more a matter of what option is the least bad.

Regardless, as long as we can continue to have fun with our friends and drive the wheels off our cars it'll be ok. Thats what is important.

Al Fernandez wrote:


Al speaks the truth! This is a great series and the people involved will keep making it that way no matter what rubber we are rolling on.

-bj