Lucas Oil tire rule draws mixed driver reactions
By Joshua Joiner
DirtonDirt.com
The new Lucas Oil Series tire rule is aimed to requiring fewer tires. (DirtonDirt.com)
Scott Bloomquist looks forward to carrying a smaller variety of tires in his hauler at upcoming Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series races. Ray Cook doesn’t plan on running as many series races because his preferred tire brand is no longer allowed. And Chad Stapleton hopes lower-budget local drivers who run occasional tour events can still be competitive.
Those are but a few reactions from drivers after the 9-year-old Lucas Oil Series announced a new Hoosier Tire-only rule last week that requires series competitors to use one of six newly-replated tires on the right-rear corner starting March 23 event at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway.
Aimed at reducing the amount of tires required by race teams, the long-studied tire rule is the tour’s answer to the vast array new constructions among tire compounds that made it burdensome on teams to be able to haul and prepare the best tires for wide-ranging track conditions.
Lucas Oil officials consulted with series, regional and local drivers to come up with the best solution — six right-rear tires of the same ribbed construction that match existing Hoosier compounds — to help reduce tire inventory and man-hours required for preparing tires, the series said.
Bloomquist, a two-time series champion from Mooresburg, Tenn., and Steve Francis of Ashland, Ky., are among series regulars supportive of the new tire rule, which in most cases will be limited to three or fewer right-rear tire choices at each particular track.
“I think overall it’s going to be a good thing,” said Bloomquist, a long-time proponent of Hoosier Tire. “When you really look at the whole thing and how many different actual constructions there are of the same compound, before we might end up hauling around four different constructions of the same compound, and we just don’t have the room. So just for the ability to have more room in our rig and not have to mess with a specific tire for a specific racetrack, I think will be a lot better.”
Francis agrees with Bloomquist, with the caveat that Hoosier doesn’t increase the price of its tires and sticks with the right-rears only.
“As long as they keep the price of the tires down and don’t mandate it all the way around the race car, then I’m for it,” said Francis, the Ashland, Ky., racer who drives the Barry Wright house car for Clint Bowyer Racing. “They got it down to a rib construction, so a guy can still play with the way he grooves a tire and play with his compounds a little bit because you’ve got at least a few options. I’m fine with that. But if it gets to where these tires start costing $170 or something like that, then that becomes an issue.”
The tire rule is a disappointment for American Racer Racing Tires, a tire brand previously was legal on the tour. According to the company’s manager of race tires, Scott McAdoo, American Racer proposed ways the Lucas Oil Series could limit tire options and still allow for multiple tire brands, but to no avail.
“Of course we don’t like the one tire brand in the series. Competition is good in any phase of the sport,” McAdoo said. “Although the concept of limited construction and compound is a good idea, it still needs to be policed correctly and this can be done by having multiple tire brands. While American Racer believes that limited constructions and compounds can be accomplished with multiple suppliers, it is equally true that single supplier deals do not assure compound-construction uniformity.”
Ray Cook of Brasstown, N.C., competed in 21 Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events, recording the most feature starts on the national tour by any non-series regular, but the American Racer-supported driver is scaling back his series involvement. Besides being busy promoting two miniseries, Cook says he’s no longer motivated to compete on the first national tour with a single-company tire rule since the Xtreme DirtCar Series aligned with Goodyear in 2004.
“I don’t know when I’ll ever race with Lucas again. Might be in a few weeks, might be next year, I don’t know,” said Cook, who skipped February’s Lucas Oil action at Florida’s East Bay Raceway Park for the first time in more than a decade, even though American Racers were still allowed during the Dart Winternationals. “I just really haven’t put much emphasis on that since they started talking about going that direction. I’ve just decided to kinda do something else for now.”
Donnie Moran of Dresden, Ohio, also frequently competed with Lucas Oil using American Racer tires. While he agrees that something needed to be done to limit tire options, Moran doesn’t agree with limiting competitors to a single brand.
“If you run American Racer, it’s not a good deal at all,” Moran said. “I’m not saying it’s not something that didn’t need to be done, but there’s no denying that doing it this way is going to hurt certain guys in this sport.”
Where Cook differs from Moran is that he doesn't see the need for the tire rule, at least not if saving racers money is the goal.
“Late Model racing’s always been about tires. The idea that we’re gonna make this thing better by keeping someone from hauling two or three extra right-rear tires, I just don’t buy into that,” said Cook, who competed full time with the Lucas Oil Series from 2009 through ‘11. “There’s no way you’re going to save a racer money because a racer’s going to spend as much money as they have. They’re trying to save the racer 30 or 40 tires a year or whatever they think it will save them. That’s all fine and dandy, but they’re still gonna spend that same money. Now they’re gonna spend it with somebody that makes shocks or their gonna rent a racetrack and test or hire another helper.”
Drivers who use American Racer tires won’t be the only ones affected. Even if they typically use Hoosier tires, drivers who don’t compete with the series full time will have to buy the new series-identified right-rear tires to compete in Lucas Oil races. While they’d be able to use those tires even after the Lucas Oil event, the tire rule can add an extra expense.
“It’s definitely going to make things a little harder for a local or regional guy that doesn’t run those tires very often,” said Chad Stapleton, the Edinburgh, Ind., driver who most often competes with the series when it visits tracks in his home region. “Maybe you make a deal where the local guys can go ahead and run what the local track allows and the Lucas touring guys gotta stay on what they’re on. You could have some kind of stipulation where Billy Bob Thornton who runs at this local track has to run it so many times, like 75 or 80 percent of their weekly races in order to qualify to run the local tire rule.”
Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., another frequent competitor on the Lucas tour, sees some of the advantages of having a limited tire rule. But he'd like to see even more steps taken to limit money and time crews spend preparing rubber.
“If they’re doing something that’s gonna be cheaper on drivers and less work, then I’m all for it,” said Marlar, who has four career Lucas Oil Series victories, including two in 2012. “But the biggest thing with tires for our team, is basically we just have one guy who all he does is tires. If they were able to make some kind of rule where we could cut some of the grooving and siping out and actually have a cheaper tire, that would be better for everyone in racing.
“I would love it if we had three compounds, no grooving or siping and they were all more reasonably priced for everybody.”
There are other reasons for requiring all drivers to use the same tire brand. As Bloomquist sees it, the new rule will put all drivers competing in the Lucas Oil events on a level playing field.
“It makes it fair for everyone,” Bloomquist said. “Guys that have won races with a different brand or an off-the-wall tire choice, they may not have got the credit that they deserved because people just thought it was the tire. So in the big picture, it’s probably better for them, too.”
A major question surrounding Lucas Oil’s new tire rule will be how the rest of the sport reacts. Series officials hope other series and tracks adopt similar and compatible rules. But as Francis points out, some could go the other direction.
“I think Lucas Oil did a good thing here, and I’d like to see others — especially the racetracks that host Lucas events — start going with that tire rule,” Francis said. “It definitely could affect the rest of the sport, and I just don’t want it to get where every track and every series has its own individual tire rule. And then you have seven of the same tire just because each one has a different stamp on it. Hopefully we’re smart enough not to let it go that way.”
Lucas Oil Series assistant director Rick Schwallie is confident the new tire rule will be an improvement for race teams who faced tire choices that had gotten out of hand, particularly with varied constructions of tires driven by fierce competition between Hoosier and American Racer.
"Every time you hear somebody say we’re trying to save the racers money, most of the time all you do is end up costing ‘em more money. For Late Model racing to survive, something had to be done, something needed to be done. We felt like we stuck our necks out there,” Schwallie said. "The easiest thing would’ve been for us to do is to do nothing, ignore the elephant in the room. But we didn’t. We felt like we needed to do something, and I feel like we have the best-case scenario here.”
