Thursday, July 24, 2008

July 24 - Hoosier vs. American Racer




Sorry I haven't been able to post the last couple of days. I have been really busy, and just didn't feel like posting on here late at night. The Armel-Spence incident is still being talked about almost a week later and that is a good thing, not a bad thing. The topic I am choosing to tackle today is the Hoosier vs. American Racer tire war that is going on here in the Mid-Atlantic area. I say the Mid-Atlantic area because you just don't hear too much about it outside of this area. Yes, Steve Francis and Chub Frank are running American Racers, and Tim Fuller did run American Racers to a WoO Late Model series win a few weeks back. Other than that, most of the good guys throughout the country are still running Hoosier tires. Scott Bloomquist, Jimmy Owens, and Billy Moyer have all had better season thus far than anyone else throughout the country and they are running Hoosier tires. The thing is that all the area tracks, Hagerstown included, have a Hoosier tire rule weekly. They are associated with Hoosier Tire Mid-Atlantic and that organization supplies the drivers at the track with the tires they need. A few weeks ago Hagerstown ran the Ernie's Towing & Hauling 25 that had an open tire rule. What happened? The American Racer guys destroyed the field taking four of the top five spots with Jeremy Miller winning in his first start at Hagerstown all season, and Jason Covert coming from 9th to second after starting 17th and winning the night before at Bedford in the IRS race. So, what happens on the VA Dirt Lovers board the next day. A lot of crying about how the American Racer tires are better than the Hoosier tires and it's not fair. In my opinion it's completely fair. What's wrong with a little competition. It's obvious that Hoosier tires are behind the 8-ball in this area right now. There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that the American Racer tires are faster on the tracks in this immediate area. Anyone who would argue that Hoosier tires are still faster needs only look at the results of that weekend on what Jason Covert did on American Racers at Bedford, and what happened to the field at Hagerstown the following night. The simple fact of the matter is that Hoosier needs to step their game up and create a tire that can compete with what American Racer is putting out right now. Until they can do that, people needs to stop complaining. If you want to win bad enough, you'll run the best stuff you can possibly run. Jeremy Miller and car owner Charles Buckler switched to American Racer from Hoosier at the end of last year. A while back I remember reading about a lawsuit that American Racer was filing against Hoosier for having a monopoly on racetracks. To that I say, make a better product and end the monopoly. It's all about competition. They seem to be doing something about it in this area though, because their tires are clearly faster than Hoosier tires right now. It's no different than during the mid-1990's when Goodyear was dominating the national Sprint Car scene, and along came Hoosier, and now almost everyone across the country runs Hoosier tires in the sprints.

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