Dirt Late Model Drivers Share Their Thoughts On New Hoosier Tire
Dirt Late Model Drivers Share Their Thoughts On New Hoosier Tire
Hoosier Racing Tire's new NLMT right-rear tire has drawn mixed reactions from drivers and chassis builders across the industry.
As a Hoosier Racing Tire dealer, racer Matt Cosner of Ridgeley, W.Va., knew changes were coming to the tire brand’s National Late Model Tire, the limited-compound program that governs many tours, including the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and World of Outlaws Late Model Series.
So Cosner was interested in following reactions to last week's announcement of the updated version of Hoosier’s NLMT right-rear tire, a slightly wider tire aimed at improving sidebite, balance and wear that goes on sale today. It's likely to see competition for the first time in MARS Championship Series action Thursday at Cedar County Raceway in Tipton, Iowa.
Cosner, who tested preliminary versions of the tire in two Appalachian Mountain Speedweek races last June, surfed Facebook late last week, noting mixed reactions to Hoosier’s change from 2023’s original NLMT tire that was based on the traditional LM-style tire to a new sidewall based on Hoosier’s former NRM-W tire.
“They don’t understand what it is, I think, the people that are complaining,” the 34-year-old Cosner said. “The simplest way to explain it to somebody is it’s the old tire we ran, but with a block tread, and now with bullet holes,” or small dimples meant to manage heat.
“Otherwise, the construction of it is the open tire everybody ran prior to the NLMT coming out, whereas what we’re running now is basically an LM tire, which is what everybody in the middle of the country is used to.”
According to the Lakeville, Ind.-tire manufacturer, the updated right-rear tire has a taller, softer sidewall from the current construction’s shorter, more rigid carcass. It clones the former NRM-W that was once widely used in the Southeast because of its performance on harder-packed, more abrasive racetracks.
Warrior Race Cars owner Mike Nuchols of Seymour, Tenn., who tested the revised tire with his driver Rusty Ballenger, says Hoosier specifically changed the sidewall because “the way the (current) carcass is built, it does not provide sidebite on its own.”
“You have to work on the race car to make the sidebite,” Nuchols said. “The past couple years, we’ve worked really hard on our race cars and setup thoughts as an industry to make more sidebite with the NLMT. We get these tires to test, and we can undo a lot of things we have been doing to make sidebite because this tire automatically makes the sidebite we’ve been missing.”
Cosner, whose tests with the updated right-rear tire came before Hoosier added the vented cross block dimpling, is convinced the new tire will be an improvement.
“The stuff I’ve seen people complaining about, saying it’s junk, like, this is as close as you’re going to get to not more junk,” Cosner said. “This is the best thing they’ve done to give us the casing that should’ve been from the beginning, in my opinion. It’s still with the same compounds, which I agree with because it’d be hard to just uproot that whole NLMT system.”
Matt Cosner in action with Hoosier's then-preliminary version of the revised NLMT right-rear tire last June at Clinton County Speedway in Mill Hall, Pa. (Jason Walls/wrtspeedwerx.com)
Tire Competition: Jonathan Davenport's Takeaway
Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., is convinced Hoosier’s midseason tire change is business-driven. The three-time Lucas Oil champion who has significant experience on the former NRM-style Hoosier believes the revised NLMT right-rear is Hoosier’s bid to better compete with Indiana, Pa.-based American Racer.
While Hoosier’s NLMT program assures national tour dominance, American Racer has gained traction among many regional tours in the Southeast and this season became the exclusive tire of the Northeast-based United Late Model Series and Selinsgrove Ford Appalachian Mountain Speedweek.
“I know that common knowledge, based on what the old tire was, I know the characteristics of what that does to the car. I think most racers know that,” Davenport said. “But I don’t know why they need to change the tire or make it any different. Obviously, they are just trying to compete with the open-compound American Racer. That’s the only reason they’re changing it. They’re making us buy brand-new tires, you know. Not that we have a stockpile of tires, but it’s still just a different tire.”
Davenport’s wish list for Hoosier’s NLMT program is producing a tire that doesn’t require grooving, cutting or siping to enhance its performance.
“My only thing is, and I tried to get them to do this before they went to the tire rule, if they’re all about wanting to save money, supposedly saving money is what this is all about … but if they would make the tire so we don’t have to groove it or sipe it, we could cut out a tire guy essentially,” Davenport said. “All we’d have to do is mount it and grind it, we wouldn’t have to hire another person throughout the year.
“That would be the biggest savings we could do. Everybody has a set aside, so to speak, tire guy, because that’s all they do is mount and groove. You know damn well they could do it, if they wanted to. If we’re going to a tire rule, that’s what needs to happen.”
Shanon Rush, the oval track dirt product manager at Hoosier, says a potential no-groove, no-sipe rule “is completely up to the series” and “there are always pluses and minuses both directions, but it’s still up to the series.”
Davenport’s main takeaway of Hoosier’s new right-rear tire is “they’re trying to win the local races.”
“That’s where they’re losing sales at, is on the local and regional level to American Racer,” Davenport said. “And that’s what it all boils down to.”
In last season’s Appalachian Mountain Speedweek races where Cosner tested the revised right-rear Hoosier tire, Tyler Emory won on American Racers at Clinton County Speedway in Mill Hall, Pa., and Gregg Satterlee won at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway as one of the test drivers of Hoosier’s right-rear.
Cosner, who finished third and sixth in those races, said at Clinton County “we got beat by American Racer, flat out,” but “that’s OK because competition is a good thing.”
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WATCH: Highlights from last June's Appalachian Mountain Speedweek event at Port Royal Speedway won by Gregg Satterlee.
Reasons For Optimism
Like Cosner, though, Nuchols believes Hoosier’s new right-rear tire is an upgrade after his primary house-car driver Rusty Ballenger logged many test laps.
The revised tire “puts the race car back where it was five years ago,” Nuchols said, adding that “drivers get more feel back in the race car instantly,” and that the new tire proved two-tenths of a second faster than the original NLMT.
Ballenger also told Nuchols the new right-rear “stuck the race car again to the racetrack” and he “could feel the right-rear tire,” where Nuchols concludes the tire “is more consistent through the length of a run.”
“We had to really work at sticking the (original) tire into the ground,” Nuchols said. “So we were just seeing, at least for two years, very excessive wear.”
Nuchols also believes the original NLMT tires caused racing surfaces to develop rubber strips and become bottom-dominant because of excessive tire wear, because the older LM-style tires have never been compatible to harder-packed, more abrasive tracks in the Southeast.
“Down here in the South, we see a lot of variation of the Crate racing 21 and 55s, and then the NLMTs,” Nuchols said. “If you go to a racetrack that has the 21 and 55 in the combination cycle, it doesn’t rubber down. Those tires act differently than (NLMT) 2, 3 or 4. If we go to a race with an NLMT 3 or 4, that racetrack will rubber down way faster than previous years.
“I mean it is weird we’re seeing racetracks rubber down that haven’t rubbered down in the past. But it’s because the tires have been on top of the racetrack, wearing off, instead of sticking to the racetrack.”
In Cosner’s 2024 tests with the new tire at Clinton County and Port Royal, he admitted he “actually struggled with it a little because it changed my car.” But his takeaway was that “it acted more like the older tire, 100 percent.”
From a performance standpoint, how might the new tire influence Dirt Late Model racing on the whole? The cream will likely still rise to the top.
“The best car is still going to win the race, usually, or the best driver,” Cosner said. “But there’s a lot of people who have different opinions.”
Further evaluating the pair of Appalachian Speedweek races where Satterlee, Cosner and Drake Troutman tested a developing version of Hoosier’s new right-rear tire, Cosner said the tire didn’t give him nor the other two test drivers a significant advantage.
“The drivers that won the races that week and ran where they did were going to run where they were anyway and win the races that they won regardless of that tire,” Cosner said. “I feel like the construction change in the end is going to be a good thing in the end.”
Potential Implications: Bobby Pierce Weighs In
With the revised right-rear tire generating more sidebite, could it diminish the advantage of drivers who’ve worked hard to develop mechanical grip on their race cars with the original NLMT tires?
World of Outlaws Late Model Series points leader Bobby Pierce fears that. The 28-year-old Oakwood, Ill., drivers has a whopping 79 victories since 2023, when Hoosier introduced the NLMT program.
“I don’t understand why they’re trying to give us more sidebite,” said Pierce, who added that the revised right-rear tire “will definitely change a lot.”
“I mean the tire is probably the most important thing on a race car, especially the right-rear,” added Pierce, who has driven on LM-style (now NLMT tires) virtually his entire career. “The tire and how it compresses and grips the track, everything about it. The tire and the sidewall specifically is basically a shock and spring. So, I’m sure loads might need adjusted, maybe spring rates … maybe J-bar adjustments. I don’t know.”
While not mentioning Pierce specifically, Cosner said he wouldn’t be surprised if Dirt Late Model racing’s biggest winners on Hoosiers in recent seasons might need time to adjust.
“The dominant guys, I can’t see them improving with the new tire,” said Cosner, a Rocket Chassis driver less familiar with the Longhorn Chassis that’s won five of the last eight titles on the Lucas Oil and World of Outlaws tours. "I could be wrong because I don’t know anything about (Longhorn), but those few people dominating come to my mind. Why would they even want to change their car for it” if the new tire doesn’t work as well with successful suspension setups, Cosner said.
"I think you will find people hunting down the old tires and trying to run them because of them struggling to get their car where it needs to be with the new tire.”
That hypothetical is what Pierce mulls over, too. Both Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series director Rick Schwallie and World of Outlaws Late Model Series director Steve Francis said the national tours will allow any NLMT tires, the original and revised right-rears, through the end of their seasons, a request made by Rush from Hoosier.
That leaves drivers like Pierce, who’ve had so much success with the original right-rear, in a bit of a quandary.
“My other concern is what if I need to stock up on old right-rears, if I don’t like the new tire on certain conditions?” Pierce said. “Right now I’m in the dark to that at the moment and it might take a while to figure out. The point of that is, I just don’t know if I need to buy a whole bunch of the old right-rears before they are hard to come by.”
Pierce is even wondering how the revised right-rear might change how tracks race and change through a night, from preliminary action that lead into main events.
“Yeah, I am curious, like, will it make a bottom- or middle-dominant track (even) more dominant?” Pierce said. “I would imagine with more sidebite, you might not need to rest your right-rear on a cushion to get sidebite. So will that make the middle of the racetrack too fast? Some tracks have that issue already. Eldora (Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio), coming to my mind as one of them.
“Now I won the World 100 last year by running the wall of (turns) one and two. But it took hitting my marks perfectly to do that. (Dale) McDowell was running the middle. I think it will be a learning curve for everyone. If the tire truly is that much better with sidebite in the corner, then tracks might have to adjust.”
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WATCH: Highlights from Bobby Pierce winning last September's 54th World 100 at Eldora Speedway.
Pierce, like most drivers, just hopes to become acquainted with the new tire as soon as possible so he knows where to take his race program setup-wise.
“One of my biggest concerns is that I wasn’t a part of the five or 10 drivers that got to test this tire,” Pierce said. "There are at least over a handful of guys that probably ran 50 or 200 practice laps each, so they know a lot about it and how it affects the race car, and what air pressure feels good. And most importantly, how the tire reacts to long distance races, how aggressive you can be with sipes and grooves, etc.
“I really hope I get an opportunity to go race it or at least find somewhere to practice it before a big race or before a points race.”