YOU!!! All this time... You've been holding out! I had no idea this stuff was out there...
It seems to come up every 3-5 years and I've posted most of this before. But, we all have different points of focus and if you weren't thinking of tires at the time, may not have paid much attention. Additionally, not everyone is willing to use non-d.o.t. or bias plys, so I don't always direct the discussion to these types of tires. FWIW, when I got back into oval track in the 90s, we were running bias plys. After a couple seasons the track decided to switch to radials. The first season times were off as everyone adapted to the new settings and driving style that radials would tolerate. However, once everyone figured it out, the radials did begin to turn quicker laps despite being heavier.
If you aren't concerned with legality or using bias ply, then look at American Racer (formerly McCreary) IMCA spec tires. they offer a variety of sizes in both metric and old school alpha-numeric format along with a variety of tread patterns. Street stock d.o.t is where you might start:
http://www.americanraceronline.com/tires/dot-street-stock/The ones you linked wont do... they're slick. As are most ov the other options. All-out slicks aren't gonna pass ANY cop's wandering eye, but the treaded tires just might. The one treaded option is too small (1" narrower than a 295). BUT... there is a dirt track tire there... in the 295/50-ish size... with tread. Wonder how that'd work on pavement?
Are these that cheap?
The ones I linked to do have tread, albeit very shallow tread. They also offer all out slicks, but as you have seen, slicks can be grooved to produce a tread appearance. Purchase a grooving tool and you can do your own. Towel City does offer an 11" dirt tire. The softer compounds will grip better than a wider, harder tire, so an inch narrower than a BFG TA is not a deal breaker,IMO.
Price...$80-125 on average. Tires are consumables and a big point of contention for price and competitiveness in the oval track world. Its not uncommon to trash one or two every night of racing, so they have to be as inexpensive as possible.
Also look into Towel City Racing Tires. They offer competition retreads built on d.o.t. carcasses that are available with our without tread designs. They also offer cambered surfaces on some sizes. Dirt track tires with tread may be the starting point with these. They also offer pie crust cheater slicks for the vintage guys;
http://www.towelcityracingtires.com/racing-tires/dirt-racing-tires.aspxThe rub with both of these are they are designed as competition and spec track tires, so buying as a freelance driver might be a bit tough unless you can convince them you are an outlaw racer. They have policies about not selling direct in order to avoid cutting out track operators who make money off of track spec tires. You could always see if they have a distributor in your area and buy through them. Upside to both, they aren't expensive and they will out grip any standard street tire.
I DO know a circle-track racer locally who's pretty well-known. Been doing it forever... his stuff looked pretty damn serious to me. I paid him to bring his car scales over to my house to scale my last car. Maybe he could set me up with anything i couldn't otherwise get.
He probably could. If you know an oval track racer, that means a track is nearby, perhaps? You may also be able to buy direct from the track its self. You might also contact those manufacturers directly and ask them who the regional distributor in your area is.
Oddly enough, back to the original idea for a question... Where exactly are you scoring those 295 Marauder's for $150? I cant find anything remotely reasonable on them.
Sorry, my mistake. Maxxis Bravos and MT ST are in $150 range. The Marauder and MT SR will be in the $200+ range.
