Hi Jim,
I've not been active this year, but suddenly a member up here (Mission, BC) has proposed a spec tire proposal. It's too late to get it on the agenda, but I'd like to put our/my two cents in because we now have a season of experience working with an informal spec tire rule in SCCBC.
Basically, everybody has agreed to run only American Racers (if its dry). It has resulted in very close racing with consistent lap times. This past weekend was a non-championship event (ie the historics) so we played around with both American Racers and Hoosiers. The result was that new Hoosiers are about 1.4 seconds faster a lap. However after 8 or 10 cycles they are on parity with the American Racers and after 17 cycles the cord will probably be showing. On the other hand, there seems to be very little time degradation on the AR's until maybe 20 or even 30 heat cycles. Therefore everybody is competing on equal terms with AR's no matter how many heat cycles you have on them. With Hoosiers you are losing about 1/10 second/per lap / per heat cycle. So in effect the guy with the new hoosiers wins.
My personal experience has been that American Racers are more fun to race on because you get much more controllable slippage. I've heard that the really fast guys want the knife edge of the Hoosiers because it takes more skill, but we have a really fast Formula Ford guy up here who is absolutely amazing with what he can do on the American Racers. I just wish I could do the power drifts that he seems to do about twice per corner (and yes he does have the lap record for FF up here.)
So, too conclude: I submit that the American Racers would be a good spec tire for our class because they are at least 2/3 the cost of the Hoosiers, they last three times longer, and everyone will be racing on equal traction regardless of the number of heat cycles. I should probably say that Hoosier makes an awesome tire and when they are new they have incredible traction; but they just don't seem to be appropriate for the spirit of Formula Vee if you have to buy a new set every 3 weekends.
Just my two cents
Paul