In the rough and tumble world of Super (indexed-pro tree) racing, it takes a special tire to withstand the rigors often associated with this complex style of competition. Faron Lubbers, of Hoosier Racing Tires, is confident that his product succeeds with honors in this arena and he’s not afraid to talk about it. He’s been working with the company for as long as they’ve been building competitive tires for drag racing.

The authority that enables Lubbers to speak is experience. That’s why he has no problem recommending his product to racers who participate in this form of competition.

“The main thing you always look for is consistency,” Lubbers says. “You need a tire that repeats time and time again, even when the track is not at its best.”

When the track is marginal, that’s when Lubbers says the Hoosier brand is at its best in the Super wars. However, his assessment is that it all goes back to finding the right tire for the right combination.

The first thing, Lubber says, is that a racer must ask himself some key questions. Immediately they should ponder how large of a tire can they install? Secondly, what is the horsepower range that the tires will be working with? How wide are the wheels these tires will be mounted on?

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While some might think that logic would help a person decide which tire to use, Lubbers adds that some racers still subscribe to the outdated concept that one-size-fits-all. Such is not the case, as each car has its individual demands. With the sport continually evolving, it requires the racer to keep up if they are to stay ahead of the game.

Lubbers noted that the dragsters of today’s Super and bracket community are actually running a much larger slick than they did in the early part of the last decade. He recalls when his company started that the standard was 14-inches wide. It had a 102-inch circumference. Now there are Super Comp dragsters running the 1716 model, which are 111 inches in circumference and 17 inches wide.

“A lot of that has to do with the horsepower ratings these cars have stepped up to,” added Lubbers. “Every year, these cars keep getting faster and faster. Some of these cars can run low seven-second runs. We try to find that happy medium between the indexed-pro tree racers and the bracket racers.

Lubbers said that a small tire for Super Comp is a 33 X 15, 104-inch tire, which is 15-inches wide. It’s pretty hard to see a car with that small of a tire on it. Most of them have a 33 X 17 on it. Some have even more than that on their cars.

Lubbers went on to state that as the cars get quicker, drivers have tended to lean more towards the Hoosier tire. That becomes even more critical when the conditions outside are nastier than nasty.

“I think our advantage comes into play the most when the track gets marginal,” Lubbers says. “The compound we have developed is more consistent in those conditions. If the track is good, every kind of tire should work. The advantage comes to us, I feel, when the track gets greasy and slick, or as they say, ‘goes away.’ When you can do well in those conditions, we like to say that the cream of the crop will rise to the top.”

There are no unpublished secrets per se, Lubbers says, when it comes to making their tires work best in less than desirable conditions.

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“We actually want to make this as easy as we can for all the racers,” said Lubbers. “We want them to be able to bolt them on and go. That’s not always the case in every application, unfortunately. We want the racer to have to search very little when it comes to finding the right combination, but each car can have different characteristics.”

Air pressure and burnout style can make a large difference in how the tire performs.

“Our tires don’t require as much of a burnout as some do,” Lubbers said. “It’s not like it was a long time ago when you used to have to do long burnouts to soften tires up. The way they are now you usually only need a burnout to clean them off. The tires are so sticky these days that it picks up anything you may encounter driving through the staging lanes or pits.”

The tires work equally regardless of how the sanctioning body prepares the track. When its 100 degrees outside, you can’t really blame the track prep. In fact, Lubbers says that is the best time for using his tires.

According to Lubbers, the feedback that he’s getting back from the racers mirrors his statements of consistency when the track is marginal. “The hardest thing in this deal is to keep your car tuned around a certain set of tires. You have to do your best to repeat every time. When you put tolerances on your tires, you have to stick to them. A racer has to have the confidence that what he is bolting on is going to be as consistent as what he just took off. You can’t change the tires on these guys.”

With street cars it’s easy to change the compounds because you are not dealing with performance in the capacity you are with drag racing vehicles. However, if you change the least little bit on the drag racing tires it can affect them greatly.

“We are continually refining the compounds and constructions to better what they have,” Lubbers continued. “Little changes and subtle changes are the plan. When you put more traction into the tire, you have to compromise some on the toughness. You can’t make your judgment on one set of conditions and one track. It’s a behind the scenes kind of deal. We can’t keep the same tire as engines and horsepower improves. It’s an evolution thing.”

Hoosier has lowered the price 20 dollars per tire for 2004, which is unheard of in the business. Lubbers admits that Hoosier is doing that in order to help the racers better fit racing into their budgets.

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“We’ve tried to adjust the price to help the racers. All we make is racing tires and we have to do what we do the best we can. We have to do it to be able to eat and we like to eat around here.”

The combination of a cost-efficient price and consistency is something that has the folks at Hoosier smiling broadly. According to Lubbers, at Indy, Hoosier had the majority of qualifiers in the super categories.

“Those guys won’t run your product if it isn’t any good. You can’t go to the racetrack with all the money that these guys do with something that isn’t going to work. They may be sportsman, but they are professionals. This is high quality equipment. We owe it to them to give them a good product.”

With racers like Gary Stinnent, Sherman Adcock, Jim Hughes, Ron Folk and Steve Furr, just to name a few, running the product, its no wonder that Hoosier is happy. Add in the fact that eight out of top ten cars in NHRA Super Comp and six out of the top ten NHRA Super Gas point earners are flying the banner and Hoosier is confident they are primed for great things to come in the future.