Having absorbed the above and a small mountain of personal emails that arrived in the time it took to get lunch, it appears that the onus is indeed on Series organisers to make a call. Typical. I have to make a call on a subject I know very little about...

Dons little black moustache and proceeds...

I see practical difficulties in administering the handicaps when drivers swap willy nilly, but as we do run a 100% handicap system, then whereas I normally use a mixture of historical and current best times for the weekend, maybe 4:1, or 3:2, I may have to have a play, but I think that what will happen if we allow these tyres in, is that once a driver has recorded his fastest time using these tyres it will show up in the system just as a fast time, but if it then rains and his performance is vastly reduced in percentage terms, compared to those using the same tyres throughout, then the handicap is going to work against them. To which I would reply - hard luck!

In other words, a bog standard MGB on good, fresh Toyos may only be 3% slower in wet weather at Pukekohe (Old track) but a stonking V8 switching from the good tyres may then be down 10%.

The handicap system sorts it all out eventually other than we will enforce the 1:13 speed bar at HD and a similar time at Pukekohe. That means that say Derek Atkinson and Tony who were NOT running the tyre we are talking about would gain no advantage, but would have to button off anyway. Equally, Neil may have to button off because of the tyres.

We will trial it for a season as Neil suggested and if there is a wet race and there are incidents, or throughout the season, if there are suspension failures attributable to using these tyres, then we'll reserve the right to ban them as from the next meeting. Unless I get a differing view, I'll incorporate that into our rules so that everyone knows where they stand.

The points above regarding T & C, the era and an exact period, are fine but for us and given the stance of two thirds of the drivers not having a CoD or interested in having one, I see no specific problems.

If the HMC/U3L is opened up to CoD only cars of any capacity, (scrap the U3L limit) this gives an arena for those who object to our stance somewhere to play with like minded drivers. In other words, banning the Hankook from that grid. If one or two drivers switch to that grid and leave the ERC grid, that is fine, it is a matter of choice based on not just performance, perceived equality etc but also on driving standards.

That a seems a reasonable compromise to me so now I'll remove the moustache.