Roger, having just returned to 1/10th Off-Road you have missed the disgrace that was Schumacher yellows last season. As I have stated in another thread tires would rip apart in use and come with poorly moulded spikes from new. We had batches of 4wd fronts with very thin side walls. Their quality was nothing short of shocking. Suddenly GRP appear and Schumacher decide to pull their finger out and apparently are making a new mould. If GRP had not taken a chance at making a rival tire then we may have still had the poor Schumache tires.
Having BB and schumy tires as the controls all the way through the National series is a good thing as it measns that drivers (and shops) attending only have to carry 4 types of tires (Schumy yellow / green BB green / pink) and it will cover all expected situations (option would be schumy blues I guess).
Why not just have one control tire, would make things even easier?
I class the BRCA Nationals as one of the best series in the world, why not give our racers a chance to perform using the best available tires.
If, as stated in another thread Schumacher make a new tire mould, whose going to buy the old, poorly moulded tires. This WILL screw the shops over, unless Schumacher replace them.
If the GRP tires prove to be the better option then I expect to see them as controls for next year for some venues and look forward to using them
It seems that they were better than BB's in the dry for Stotfold but were still not chosen, seemingly for an unknown reason, as BB's are not the best choice in any condition.
Now we have a stiution whereby it would seem the obvious choice to allow GRP/Schumacher for a national. This would be the last national of the year so plenty of time to test the GRP's for drivers that have never used them, or they could just stick to what they know. Why not give the tires a shot and see what happens? If they were no good, at least we still have the best choice for any condition available.
If the alternative tires gave a significant advantage
Is giving the racer's a choice not an advantage?
On the other hand people have to think about BB and schumy who's tires are only really used in large quantities in the UK and specific parts of Europe ...... if these tires stopped being the control tires for these sort of events then think of the potential outcome. It wouldn't be long before it became financially non-viable for them to make the tires that WE (as a country) need. The result of that is production ending and us all having to try and get our brushless powered missiles round sopping wet long grass tracks on Losi / Proline tires ... now wouldn't that be "fun".
They would only go out of business from competition, which means there must be a superior product on the market, so no I don't think we will be left with Losi/Proline as the only option.
If we continue to not allow another company to add competition to the market by having BB/Schumacher control tires at regionals & nationals we will just return to the situation last year with very poor tires
I would rather embrace the new tires and give them a fair shot.