Today, I got an email that sounded absolutely crazy, but then I realized that some people might share the same view: using slicks at the drag strip—or even sticky street-legal tires on the highway—is cheating. To quote the guy from the email, “…racing slicks are not ‘good tires,’ they are ‘illegal tires’ on every street in this country. My daily driver makes way more than 600 hp, and it never occurred to me to take the easy way out and put slicks on it. An honest man just learns how to drive a powerful car. Sure, it's hard to hook up, but that's not the way to live your life—cheating every time you think it's too hard to be honest.”
To clear the air, at PHR, we never use slicks on the street because they’re illegal. On the other hand, so what? If slicks are safe enough to push a Top Fueler to over 300 mph, the only thing that makes them dangerous is the inexperience of the driver.
We’ve run into this mentality before, where some guys think they’re somehow more manly, or more “honest,” if they are staring at the guard rail going sideways, spinning helplessly out of control.
What do you think?