Just in time for, erm, autumn, tire company Hoosier is rolling out an extreme high performance summer tire that’s street legal. Called the TrackAttack Pro, it is likely to spawn a line of tires to go up against grippiest variants of the Michelin Pilot Sport range or Continental’s ExtremeContact Force.
Beyond the marketing speak of ‘track dominance’ and ‘street performance’, there’s no denying Hoosier knows how to make a set of high-po tires. Internal docs suggest this new TrackAttack Pro isn’t far off the Hoosier R7 in terms of dry handling and braking when tested on the same car in equal conditions, with any trade-off given up in the name of tread life.
Hoosier, as a tire company, has always fascinated this author. Back in the late ‘80s, it decided to take on Goodyear in NASCAR, despite being a (relatively) small company successful largely on short tracks in the Midwest – not the high-speed banks of Daytona. Just a handful of racers used Hoosier tires during the first race in which they were available to use, yet a couple of those competitors finished in the top 10. After hotshoe Neil Bonnett won the next two races on Hoosiers, other teams began to take notice and Goodyear was forced to admit its program had become somewhat stagnant.
As development and competition progressed, tires from both companies became more extreme and knife-edge in terms of durability and grip. It is also worth remembering that, at the time, there was no rule preventing teams from switching tire brands mid-race should strategy call for it. A car could start the day on Goodyears but the cameras would see Hoosiers in victory lane, for example. Or vice versa.
By the middle of the year, tire durability was becoming a concern as the two companies tried to outdo each other in terms of performance. Wrecks due to tire failure started rearing their head and by the World 600 (you young’ins know it as the Coke 600 these days) Goodyear pulled all its tires from competition for that race because they discovered an alarming amount of air loss thanks to the soft compound. Hoosier exited NASCAR at the end of the decade but tried again in the mid-‘90s. Results were similar, though officially Bob Newton made the decision to withdraw Hoosier from NASCAR because of financial burdens – rules stated Goodyear and Hoosier had to show up to each race with enough tires for all teams, even if only a handful were running one or the other. Depending on the track, this meant over a thousand tires per race.
As for the new TrackAttack Pro tire released this month for the street, it’ll be available in a raft of sizes from 15-inch donuts to 21-inch honkers. Numerous examples will exist in tread widths starting with a ‘3’. Giddy up. Sizes in the 18-inch and 19-inch range are available right now, with the others appearing between now and this time next year.
[Image: Hoosier]
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