Sounds interesting. My concern is that steel wheels don't hold up to the rigors of racing. Steel flexes back and forth, then breaks (i.e. ever bent a hanger or a paper clip, until it breaks?) Alloy is much safer.
I think you are over estimating the "rigors of racing" a $2000 car. And you have also completely got the wheel behavior backwards...
Here is a bent steel wheel:
Aluminum will break long before steel will:
But, needless to say what wheels are allowed has no bearing on the success of this series. There are obviously not enough people willing and/or able to enter the races to make this work.
Let's do this... From now on there are no rules!
There are all these people that want to run this series. The vast majority of them have no real race experience yet they thinks their $2000 race car will be SO fast and handle SO well, that every other competitor will be is such awe of their awesome race car building powers that at the very first opportunity they will have their über racer bought out from under them. Well, now you don't have to worry! I'd like you to have an inexpensive car, but people don't want to enforce a $2000 car rule so from now on it is only a suggestion. We'll use the honor system...
Run whatever tire you want. People seem to think they wont even be able to make it out of the paddock with 195s. Someone even suggested we allow the tread width be 1/10 of the car's weight. so if you had a 1950 pound car you could run 195s, and if you had a 2750 pound car you can run 275s... Well, the last time I checked, a good set of used 275s were wroth almost as much as these cars will cost before safety equipment. Well, now you don't have to worry! Run whatever tire you want! Huge race slicks are just fine, I don'y want you sliding of the track in every turn....
So, with no enforceable budget and any tire is allowed, why try to keep costs down. With all these race experts telling me steel wheels just wont hold up to the "rigors of racing" a $2000 shit box weighting 2400 pound with 100 wheel horse power. I mean 800 hp cars weighing 3400 pounds use them every Sunday at NASCAR events... Well, now you don't have to worry! Run whatever wheel you want!
As I see it, there is now no good reason NOT to run the series... I doubt this will bring even 3 more competitors, but all the bench racers will now have the ability to imagine building the fastest car ever made with no limitations at all.
I've talked to my business partner about this series and he seems to have been right all along. If people really want to race, they will find a way. They will sacrifice and make choices that lead them to the track. No matter how easy or inexpensive I make it for people to start racing, they still have to choose to do it on their own.
