Pie Crust slicks look a like

Lippy,
You are absolutly correct, that is why they were called cheaters slicks. We weren't cheating anyone at the track it was all about getting around the law.

If you look back at the way things actually were in the real world a lot of the things that we consider "cool" now had to do with the rules and a way around them.

If you are going to run cheaters or if you lean toward a later style and run steam rollers with tread it is basically the same situation, when it rains you slow down, a ton. There is no amount of suspension or tire technology in the world that is going to turn one of these old heaps into a Lexus and still give us the look we are after.

I remember the old man carrying chains so we could get through the passes in the snow. He also had rain tires and if it was a rainy day or week he would swap the tires out, it took him about 10 minutes with a tire iron and a jack. If he got caught out in the rain he would just slow down to get home, uh sometimes.

 

I ran the Hurst Cheater Slicks with the dirt-track design on the back of my Coupe for over 10 years. I bought them from Ron Hurst when he still owned the company. My Coupe is a daily driver and I drove it 70+ MPH in pouring rain and it handled pretty darn good.

 

I ran the old Hurst cheater slicks back in the late 60's on my '52 Chevy with 371 Olds engine. Had a wild ride on wet pavement that ended up with the car doing 360's down the middle of the road at only 40 mph. I didn't change the tires after that, but changed the way I took corners in the rain!
I'm running M&H with the dirt track cut design now, but haven't had them in the rain much, so not sure how they'll work.

 

I used to run dirt track tires because they were he widest tires I could afford. I liked them real well.

 

.... and they would 'Hook'

Remember the Marsh Tires we used to get out of Arkansas, those boys knew what they were doing down there. I grew up in Iowa and we used allot of Marsh tires back in the day.

When I left Kansas City in 1999, many of my buddies were still using Mc Creary Dirt Track tires on there street / strip cars because they flat out worked so well.

 

yes they did. When I was in high school I actually had a pair of stones that I got for 10 bucks apiece. Now that I look back at it they must have fallen off the truck.

I almost bought a pair of McCrearys in the later '90s from dale wilch. The tread looked real good on them and just as I was about to lay the dollars in his hand he said look at this sidewall young man. One of them must have been a right hand tire.

 

I'm still running a pair of 12.00-15 Marsh "rain tire" series from 1985...Tread pattern is like a modern day Micky Thompson, Goodyear casings so not alot of sidewall rubber..Probably have 30k miles on them and no problem when caught in severe downpours but I didn't test their limit either; no rot or cracks and worked decent at the drags too..Have maybe 10k left and gonna miss them when time to replace...

 

Cody's okay to deal with, until you have a problem! Nothing but excuses, and will not make a problem right. Once you buy'em, they're yours, good or bad! Some are 15 yr old tires to start with. Nice guy, until he's asked to take his tires back brcause there was a problem with them!

 

I use the hell out of my Hurst tires, Front super cushions and rear14"x 7" crust's
over 7k miles of street and track

 

Nice looking Chevy II!

 

Yup, pretty much my experience with most dot drag tires. If it rains, your parked. And the ones that work sorta kinda ok in the rain dont work as good at the track, so name your poison.

 

I ran the "Dirt" compound McCrearys as well, hard hooking wrinkle-wall tire with a full tread pattern, pretty much the best until the M/T ET Street came out. The McCrearys are scary in the rain, the M/Ts are a complete non-starter in the wet. Dont even THINK about it.