New Zealand Historic Saloon Cars Under HRC

[Steve Holmes]

OK, lots of good quality discussion here, lets keep it up. There have been several questions regarding tyres. As stated above, the HMC and HSC tyre options are either a road legal DOT radial, or treaded bias-ply racing tyre. The reason for this is to give people options, and really, there is no performance advantage between one or the other.

In regards to slicks, these are not acceptable for either HMC or HSC. It should be noted that MSNZ T&C and Schedule K rules for pre-1977 historic saloon cars only list road legal DOT or treaded bias-ply tyres in their rules. These are the rules both HMC and HSC are built on. HSC rules allows people to race either a T&C or Schedule K car, under MSNZ rules.

In period, during the late 1960s through early 1970s, ALL race cars, whether they were open wheels or saloons, were fitted with treaded bias-ply racing tyres. These are essentially the exact same tyres as written into the MSNZ/HMC/HSC rules. Several companies produce these, including Hoosier, Goodyear and Avon. They're a period correct treaded bias-ply, as used on all race cars in the late 1960s through early 1970s.

There were no slick tyres being produced at this time. In fact, slick tyres didn't really begin appearing until around 1973. But, these were a bias-ply slick, NOT a radial slick, and there is a HUGE difference between the two.

For the sake of keeping things simple, keeping everyone in the same playing field, keeping within the rules as set down by MSNZ under T&C and Schedule K for pre-1977 historic saloons, HMC and HSC only allows the use of road legal DOT radials, or treaded bias-ply tyres. Essentially, HMC is about racing period correct cars on period correct tyres.

And remember, this isn't some crazy New Zealand rule, this is how historic racing deals with the tyre situation all over the world.

Here are some nice period examples: