THSCC Forums

I suggest we ban Falken Azenia's, Kumho MX's and BFG KD's from the TIR class.

These tires are the tire of choice for STS. If you choose to run one of these makes in 2004, than run STS or open.

The only cars impacted are the true sports cars. They only have a choice of open class.

Let's return TIR to it original intent.

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Jim Pastorius
2008 Silverado VortecMax
1992 Camaro CMC#92
2002 BMW R1150R

2009 3rd Place CMC Mid-Atlantic Championship
2009 CMC Hyperfest Winner

I agree with Jim. I don't disagree with these tires' popularity as much as the fact I cannot get a similarly competitive tire for the 13" rims I'm stuck with in HS. This is exactly why I stopped racing in TIR. I'm still undecided as to what I will do next year for this very reason. With most tire vendors now giving up on performance oriented 13" 'street' tires, I think it's time for the 12" wheel clause to expand to 13" as well, at least for our TIR class.

Of course, I could always squeeze some Victoracers on my 13x5's and run competitively in open, but with less than a season under our belts, we don't want to make that jump just yet. What to do, what to do.....
-Dustin

Jim,

Sounds great to me (not that my opinion should really count on this topic ).

I could run TIR in my Mustang on its paid for OEM GY's with a treadwear rating of 220 or in my Formula Ford on its two year old slicks (dream on)

More seriously, assuming a new competitive STS/STX tire could show up at any time, you may want the option of excluding it also.

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Dick Rasmussen

FS 50 2018 Mustang GT

Why don't you ask some of the TIR guys first there hotshot. I don't think the answer is to ban tires, we need a spec tire for everybody. Only way to truely solve the parity problem. The Toyo TS-1 is the first obvious choice to me, they come in a ton of sizes and wear great.

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2006 Civic Si - #24 HS for 2015

2005 GMC Sierra
1991 318is Garage Ornament

being a somewhat newbie to this sport, i'm not privy to it's history...can you define this for me.

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05 MCS

Yeah, hotshot!

I agree with Jim on this. But I say ban all "Max Performance" tires (as defined by Tire Rack). If your car comes with Max Performance tires as original equipment, then you're screwed; sorry... You should've bought a different car.

TIR class is not an SCCA class; it's a THSCC class. Whoever makes the rules can change the rules. If there's a ringer tire, I say it's perfectly okay to ban that tire in a THSCC-created class to get that class back to its original intent.

If you're running TIR class because you're either too poor or too lazy to set up your car and you just want to go out and have some fun on your actual street tires, that's the intent of the class and that's great. But if you have the kind of competitive personality that makes you want to buy the best "street" tires for the job, or especially an extra set of wheels with the very best "street" rubber which will only see autox use, you belong in a more competitive class. Meaning, STS/STX if your car fits there, or Open class (if you can buy a dedicated set of "street" tires, you can buy a dedicated set of "race" tires).

There are a few very good drivers with pretty well-set-up cars in TIR class. Everybody else seems to be "running what they got." FYI, I recently compared the OE tires for my Impreza to the "street" tires that I raced on this year (Azeni), and found a 2-second difference (4 runs on each tire for each of two different drivers).

I also have another suggestion for TIR class, while we're on the topic... How about a minimum tread requirement - whatever the minimum is to pass NC inspection (I can't remember). If they really are your street tires, which you would drive around on all the time (even if it's raining!!!), then you should have enough tread on them to be able to avoid hydroplaning into the ditch on the way home from the autox.

And here's another suggestion, while I'm typing: treat TIR class (sortof) like Novice class - when you trophy, you graduate to Open class. If you don't trophy in Open class at the next two events, you get the option of going back to TIR. If you trophy again in TIR (or you trophied in your Open class), you get to stay in Open class permanently.

Peace out,

Kevin Allen

PS - I figured since I'm running for Autox VP, I should let my opinions be known...

Kevin,

I don't think you are going to get the TIR class votes this year.

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

First off, spec TIRE aint gonna work. Its just gonna create another class. Everyone isnt gonna go out and by a Toyo tire to run THSCC TOYO TIRE class. My understanding is that TIRE was creatted so that Joe Schmoe could run somehwere competitively on the stockish tires. Having a spec class does not accomplish this. Quit beating that dead horse...

Im with Jim on the exclusion list too.

The mid year "ringer" tire that Dick brings up is the only potential problem I see.

Ryan
I like race tires

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02 Focus SVT
STF 9

How often does a "mid year ringer tire" show up really. Most people aren't going to change tires mid year to try out a new tire, only to find out that it sucks. If one does come out and it is significantly faster than the others in the class, then it would make the exclusion list for the next year.



I think that is 3/32" for NC inspection. I also thought that was standard for THSCC, though I may be wrong. I've been wrong before. Not often though.

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Todd Breakey
STS 42 - 1992 Sunburst Miata
Dammit!
"You souldn't play leap frog with a porcupine. You might get hurt." - Eliza

Just throwing out ideas... the members are the ones who will decide what's going to be implemented. I think my plan would be the best way of spreading the "trophy love" though!



I was under the impression that our minimum tread requirement = "no cord showing" If we really want to have a true street tire class, the tires should be able to pass NC inspection after the autox... of course, I walk by cars in the parking lot at work every day that don't even pass the "no cord showing" rule.

I like Jim's idea as well. There are some things to be considered, and there is no way a spec tire will work for anyone. I have always been one to want to eliminate TIR class all together. This idea would actually do what TIR was meant for originally, and that was to have a 'run what 'ya brung' class. That meant low prepped cars that were driven to and from the events.

A lot of that changed after the Les Davis/Mike Whitney battles of '99 and myself/Scott Johnson battled in '00. Everyone wanted an advantage, and were willing to try some things to get it. I put Konis on a clapped out Civic Si, and ran the stickiest tire I could at the time, AVS-Intermediates. Scott had extra wheels and tires as well. It went from a non-prepped daily driver class, to a sort-of prepped daily driver class, that also changed tires.... Not quite what we wanted.

I believe that if we elimated certain tires as choices, those that are in TIR class that are at the top of the heap would become tired of not having the high level of grip that a Kumho MX or Azenis put out, and would find they would rather progress to an open class or run STS/STX where they could have some fun on the tire of their choice.

- AB

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'14 Toyota Sequoia Platinum 4WD
Super Westerfield Bros - '93 Integra - LeChump Du Jour
STX 93 - Scion FR-S

So, what was the original intent of the Tarheel "Street Tire" class? Was it ever written down?
Do the competitors in the class (I'm not one of 'em) feel that there is a problem?
Why are Azenis in particular a bad street tire? They seem almost ideal for performance summer streetability: cheap, available, and sticky but still not as sensitive to temperature or damage as an R tire.

I'm not being intentionally argumentative, I'm just trying to understand the history behind the class and the source of some of the con-TIR arguments.

--Kevin H.

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2003 WRX (again!)

I like this idea, and let me explain why.

Used to be, buying race tires was a HUGE grin-for-the-dollar upgrade over street tires. Back then a race tire was worth a good 2-4 second improvement over even the best street tires.

These days, the best street tires aren't worth more than a second over most race tires. The impetus just isn't there to run race rubber.

Our class participation numbers shows this. Open class participation is dwindling, and street tire is getting huge. Too huge, in my opinion. And I bet there hasn't been someone in the trophies in that class recently who was NOT on the "best" street tires.

We saw the effort in DS this year to get everyone running on these street-R tires, and it worked. I am even considering running DSP open on Azenis next year just to cut down on the tire budget.

So, in summary, I support treating the Street-R tires as race rubber, welcome in open classes only.

Oh, and spec tire = bad idea on oh so many levels.

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Mike Whitney
whit32@gmail.com, 919-454-5445
V10, V8, V8t, I6, I6, V6, F4t, I4, I4, I4, I4, I2, 1, 1

I'm not sure if it was ever written down but lore that was passed on to me was that the TIR class was created to give people who didn't want to spend a lot of extra money a place to play. In theory you should be able to compete without having to invest in an extra set of wheels and R compound rubber. I know, I know, this racing and if you want to win you should spend the money but, this is local level autocross not F1, were out here to have fun not see who can spend the most cash.

This year I've seen people changing tires at the event to run TIR class. That's not bad or against the rules, just not what was originally intended by the creators of the class. I've also seen several people running TIR that would have won in the open class if they had run there instead.

I think the main concern here is that with have all these perfectly good open classes that hardly have anybody using them while TIR has like 30 people in it. The other concern is that you are using PAX to score it and we've already had the discussion on how unreliable PAX can be.

The final concern, that may move the club to change the rules, is the that improved tire technology has closed the gap between "streets" and "race" compound tires. It used to be a rule of thumb that R compound tires would gain you about 2 seconds on a 60 second course. I'd bet with the newer street tires that gap is probably down to less than 1 second. At some of our slicker sites, like Sanford, the gap is probably zero. In fact some people would argue that Azenis are an advantage at Sanford.

What should the club do? Honestly, I don't have a really strong opinion either way on what the club should do with the TIR class. On one hand people seem to like it and we are here to support what the membership wants. On the other hand I'd like to see our open classes better supported and I'd also like to see TIR class run closer to the original intention.

Making a tire exclusion list is probably a good comprimise that gets the class back to it's original intent. The only thing I don't like about this is that it gives the club officers one more thing to manage.

It might be an interesting experiment to just do away with all the PAXED classes and run only SCCA classes, maybe just for an event? Who know, the world might not come to an end and at the end of the day most of us probably would still have fun?



Shawn <--- Who in the near future will be testing Azeni's against Kumho Ecsta V700's at Sanford.

Instead of a tire exclusion list, what about just raising the treadwear limit over the current requirements. I know there would still end up being a "ringer" tire, but maybe it wouldn't be such a huge advantage over normal street tires as the current ringer tires are. I know this route could also exclude some tires as delivered from the factory.

Also, what about removing the year-end ranking and trophies for TIR class? If the class is intended for those people who just want to have fun anyway, then there should be no problem with that.

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In need of car.