Usable 2nd hand 15" NASCAR Tyres for my Penske IROC? Options

[Al weyman]

Hi Guys,

I know not really relevant to 3rd and 4th gens but I have a 1977 spaceframed Penske Camaro IROC race car at home (2nd gen shape with Banjo Matthews NASCAR style chassis Car number IROC Chassis 11). Anyhow I have had the thing for years and would really like to get around to doing a number on it especially as after it was imported into the UK it ran in a series overhere called Thunder Saloons which had an inaugeral revival meeting last weekend that went down a storm and it looks like its going to return next year for original period cars. What this means is this car will at last have a home overhere so may well be worth spending some money on her. I want to restore the car back to original and will eventually need a set or two of the tall 15" NASCAR style slicks and wanted to know if there is any source over there for buying these 2nd user after the big boys have finished with them? I know they will not be the fastest way to race this car but I am not worried about that I want it to look authentic and in period as I don't do this to win just for fun.

[KeithO]

I currently road race an early 90's NASCAR Townsend chassis stock car. It uses 15" wheels and I just recently bought Hoosier and Goodyear tires for it. Tires are in production today and yes the series still runs these tires.

Are you planning on putting the car on the track or are you planning on showing it? Regardless, you may find that you will need 2 sets of tires.

Here is a picture of my car with the Goodyears on it:
(IMG:http://thumb17.webshots.net/t/83/83/6/90/24/2977690240042620437hvOzga_th.jpg)

Here is a picture of the Hoosiers when they arrived at my house earlier this year:
(IMG:http://thumb17.webshots.net/t/82/182/2/46/23/2958246230042620437LbEGwd_th.jpg)

These Hoosiers didn't work out and are mostly junk to me. I have 7 left and 3 of the 7 only have 2 laps on them. I can let these Hoosiers go very cheap, but the shipping will be very expensive to the UK. IIRC, these are 27"x10"x15".

If you are going to track the car then you probably want Goodyears. My Goodyears are the same tires that the NASCAR Nationwide series runs (and rumor has it that it also the tire for some of the SPring venues, but the no-testing thing makes it impossible to prove). These are signficantly faster than the Hoosiers *on my car*. These tires are 27"x11"x15".

See if you can figure out what size you need that will fit in the wheel wells.

I purchased the Hoosiers from these guys:
https://www.hoosiertire.com/discontinuedtires.htm
These are the ASA Late Model Tires.

In July, I purchased new Goodyears here (the ones pictured above were an old set that are gone):
http://www.competitiontire.com/about.html

Very little info can be had about the Goodyears online simply because these are still run by the pro NASCAR teams. These particular guys support some of the NASCAR races and when they came to my race last month with my tires, I found them to be quite knowledageable and helpful.

You might want to check out this forum, too. There are some very knowledeable guys over there on tube framed cars:
http://tubeframeroadrace.com/forum.php

(I lived in Sheffield in the 1990's - I'm alway glad to help a UK car guy out.)

[Doug Phillips]

PM sent.

[Al weyman]

Thanks Doug thats very helpful and I have replied to your PM.

Well the original idea when I boughtt he thing about 13 years ago was to renovate it and show it as there was not many places it could run, the series it ran in over here Thundersaloons was disbanded years ago. I do want to renovate it as original including the rather sad camel beige colour but as I have some footage on a Havoc video both incar and of the race where Mario Andretti looses it in front of the pack causeing mayhem and Al Unser was driving my car and narrowly avoiding the carnage. Anyhow the thundersaloons look like its being revived next year with huge interest so who knows. Also a sister car to this ran in Transam in the 80's and it may even be elleigle for the Transam revival.