While recent tire discussion for national touring drivers has revolved around the revised right-rear tire unveiled last week by Hoosier Racing Tire, for weekly and regional drivers in the Southeast the addition of a new compound from the Lakeville, Ind.-based tire manufacturer is drawing attention.

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The National Late Model Tire 2.5, tailored primarily for Southern track conditions, is set to make its on-track debut. Landing between the softer 2 and mid-range 3 compounds, the NLMT 2.5 is designed to give racers the feel of the former NRM-1350 tire available prior to Hoosier’s 2023 introduction of the limited-compound NLMT program.

The 2.5 is the second addition to the NLMT program that debuted in 2023 with 1, 2, 3 and 4 compounds (the softest NLMT 1 is rarely used). Last season, Hoosier created the NLMT 2.25 for Northeastern regional and weekly events

Hoosier’s oval track dirt product manager Shanon Rush told DirtonDirt earlier this month that “the core of the NLMT program will remain NLMT 2, NLMT 3, NLMT 4,” but “we can’t ignore the demands of our customers, so we will continue to evaluate adding additional compounds as necessary.”

The 2.5 compound “is based solely on customer feedback,” Rush said, adding that NLMT 2.5 fronts and left-rear tires have been on the market for distributors to soft launch to customers since late March. The NLMT 2.5 right-rear became available last week.

The 2.5 compound has yet to be utilized among the Southeast’s premier regional Super Late Model tours: the Hunt the Front Super Dirt Series, Schaeffer’s Spring and Southern Nationals, Southern All Star Dirt Late Model Series and first-year Southern Thunder Super Dirt Series. But series drivers could see the new compound soon.

Warrior Race Cars owner Mike Nuchols hopes Super and steel-block regional tours eventually embrace Hoosier's new compound in the Southeast, where American Racer tires are also commonly used.

“I just hope the dual-tire series will adopt that tire because a lot of the dual-tire series, they’re swaying one way vs. another,” Nuchols said. “They’re not swaying more toward the Hoosier side. They’re swaying more toward American Racer as far as rules packages go. Hopefully they’ll adopt the 2.5 and let us have the 2.5 in the Southern Nationals and Southern All Stars, and the Limited Late Model stuff. It’ll help our tire bills and only help the racer. It’ll make the racing better, too.”

Hunt the Front plans to phase the new compound into its tire lineup the first weekend of May, starting with the front tires only May 2-3 at Lavonia Speedway and Cherokee Speedway, according to tour director Joshua Joiner. Through the end of May, Hunt the Front allows the 2.5 to be used on the fronts and left-rear. Southern Thunder director Kelley Carlton could add the tire to his tour in May as well.

Spring and Southern Nationals promoter Ray Cook doesn’t know if he’ll add the tire while the Arkansas-based Comp Cams Super Dirt Series — its events are typically further west — won’t allow Hoosier’s new 2.5 the season, but tour co-owner Chris Sullivan said it will be considered for 2026.

Carlton, Cook and Hunt the Front’s Joshua Joiner have differing opinions of Hoosier’s new Southeast-tailored compound. Carlton reckons Hoosier is “going in the right direction, I believe that it is,” but not without reservations.

“I hate that we’re adding another compound,” Carlton said. “But I can’t change that. That’s done. If it makes the most sense for our teams, then it’s good.”

Cook, who’s also the owner and operator of American Racer South, believes adding another compound “is just going to cost racers extra money.”

“We just can’t keep adding compounds,” Cook said. “The whole idea of (NLMT) was to save people money. It’s done everything but that.”

Unlike Cook’s tours and Southern Thunder, the Hunt the Front circuit is strictly Hoosier — no American Racers are allowed — because of its DIRTcar sanctioning. Joiner said it “would be ideal” if every tour in the Southeast eventually adds Hoosier’s newest compound to their respective tire lineups.

“I believe that’ll be the case eventually,” Joiner said. “I can understand why others may be reluctant to make the change. I felt like we were in a pretty good spot with the 2s and 3s.”

The application of another compound appears to be a double-edged sword. On one hand, the 2.5 compound emulates the old 1350, which Carlton calls “probably the best tire Hoosier has ever made” in terms of durability and adaptability. Nuchols agrees.

“Looking forward to getting back to something that matches our soil type. The spec tire stuff came from the Midwest, the LM 20, 30 and 40,” Nuchols said. “Essentially that’s what the national Late Model tire is. The 2 combination is too soft for our abrasive red-dirt. It works good on brown dirt, but not good on red dirt.

“The 3 is too hard and doesn’t fire off fast enough, then you produce rubbered down racetracks because you’re sliding around a lot. So the 2.5 puts us back in that 1350 number, which is what we always ran down here.”

Carlton’s been in contact with Nuchols and what data the Warriors Race Cars owner has found in his test sessions. A pain point from the original three NLMT compounds is that it threw the typical balance of a race car off so much it led to predominantly uneven tire wire, particularly across the right-rear.

“That, as much as anything, has hurt the wear,” Carlton said. “This new tire, after talking with Ray and Mike, and guys who’ve tested it, I think it should help some of our smaller teams. I think it’s gonna be better and last a little longer.”

The downside of the NLMT 2.5 is amending tire rules midseason with the potential addition of another compound.

“Truthfully, that’s one too many,” Cook said. “If we’re going to do four compounds, you might as well go open-tire rule — whatever is round and black, run what you brung.”

Joiner felt his Hunt the Front tour found a sweet spot with the NLMT 2s and 3s. Three of the tour’s first five races have seen late-race passes for the win, and only two of those races were won from the front row.

“Guys had to choose between the two compounds on the right-front and left-rear corners, and it was leading to a lot of comers and goers in our features,” Joiner said. “I’m worried the 2.5 being closer to the 3 will take that away.”

“For our (April 4) show at Talladega (Short Track in Eastaboga, Ala.), we saw five different tire combinations among the top six starters on the starting line,” Joiner said. “We saw similar variety at (Tennessee’s) I-75 (Speedway) and (Mississippi's) Whynot (Motorsports Park). There is a concern that the 2.5 will become the predominant choice on the three corners and we’ll be back to drivers only really have to choose which right-rear to run. That could help reduce the number of tires teams have to keep in their trailer and save them some money there, but it could also hurt the racing.”

Joiner also believes if the NLMT 2.5 is going to replace the 2 for most tours, that Hoosier may limit distribution of the softer 2 compound in the Southeast, causing supply problems.

Carlton, meanwhile, allows Hoosier’s NLMT 2 and 3 on the right-front and left-rear, an open left front, and an NLMT 3 and 4 on the right-rear on the Southern Thunder tour. The veteran official simply wants to do best for racers and should he add the 2.5 to Southern Thunder’s tire lineup, "I’ll have to cut something out.”

Southern Thunder’s current tire rule came via driver feedback, particularly in allowing any tire on the left front.

“The rule we have now came from input from race teams,” said Carlton, who added “we want to do what’s best for (the racers), what we think is best for them. That’s the whole emphasis of our tire rule. We wanted it limited to that two-compound rule we have for years in the Southeast. At one time, it was the 1350 and 1600 that everybody was on there for a while. We try to stay as close to that as we could.”

Carlton’s “dream scenario” regarding Southern Thunder’s potential new-look tire rule would be the NLMT 2.5 and American SD-48 on every corner with an NLMT 4 and American SD-56 as right-rear options and any tire on the left-front.

“That would essentially put us back to a 1350-1600 tire rule,” Carlton said. “But again, I would need to do some research and testing with that to make sure nothing has changed” with the construction of Hoosier’s new 2.5.

A new Late Model tire being rolled out midseason, or tours needing to amend tire rules, is relatively rare. Carlton recalls that during the Covid-19 pandemic, supply issues required tire rule alterations. Before that, Carlton’s last experience with a midseason tire rule change came when he served as the Southern All Star race director in the early 2000s and illegally vulcanized tires required the series to open its hard-tire only rule.

In making a midseason adjustment, “our job at the end of the day is to try to make everything as even and as fair as it can be,” Carlton said. “When something like this comes along, you’re put in a position you don’t have a lot of choices to make. But you do have to make a choice.”

While Hoosier’s NLMT program assures national tour dominance with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series, American Racer’s tires have gained traction among many regional tours in the Southeast since the NLMT’s inception. This season American also became the exclusive tire of the Northeast-based United Late Model Series and Selinsgrove Ford Appalachian Mountain Speedweek.

Three-time Lucas Oil champ Jonathan Davenport believes Hoosier’s midseason tire shakeup shows Hoosier is “ trying to compete with the open-compound American Racer. That’s the only reason they’re changing it. That’s where they’re losing sales at, is on the local and regional level to American Racer,” Davenport added. “And that’s what it all boils down to.”

Carlton doesn’t disagree, but acknowledges there are other factors.

“I also know there’s a ton of racers that are beating the doors down of Hoosier asking for this,” Carlton said. “I don’t think Hoosier suddenly decided to make this new tire. All of this is in response to what their customers have asked for, I think.”

The ultimate goal for NLMT program was to bring a universal, limited-compound program to all of Dirt Late Model Racing, specifically the Lucas Oil tour and World of Outlaws.

Carlton had been “hopeful and adamant” in his advocacy for the birth of NLMT, especially during a meeting among series directors and key industry personnel at December 2022’s PRI Trade Show in Indianapolis.

A year before that, Carlton helped develop the Universal Body Rule aimed to standardize Dirt Late Model body styles, dimensions, car weights, tire sizes and other technical rules across Lucas Oil, WoO, premier regional tours across the country, and most weekly racetracks.

“We put those universal rules together so that anybody who had a Late Model, had a Late Model,” Carlton said. “You could go wherever you wanted to.”

The NLMT program has the same motive. Cook, however, was adamantly against the NLMT in preliminary meetings among series directors in 2022.

“It wasn’t a bad idea for the national tours, but the execution of it was terrible,” said Cook, who added that “the problem is, when you’re making changes like that, you have to look at regional and weekly racing.”

“There’s roughly 50-60 cars between the two tours versus 5,000 weekly and regional racers across the United States,” Cook said. “They based their decision based off less than 2 percent of the population of Late Models.”

While the NLMT rolled out at the beginning of 2023, Cook advocated American Racer to continue producing the same compounds they have all along — the 23, 33, 38, 44, 48, 53 and 56 — “because we knew the NLMT wasn’t going to last.”

“But it’s fine, we’re prepared for it,” Cook said. “We keep everything available and whatever each series wants to do, we’re ready to do it. But we knew better than to quit making stuff because we knew we would be back here” with additional Hoosier compounds.

Cook is obviously partial to the American Racer brand he reps, but Carlton attributes American’s momentum in the sport to Cook’s involvement and believes “the competition is good for the teams” and “we want both tire brands involved.”

Above all, Carlton hopes regional tours can find middle ground to make the Southeast’s tire rules maintain a healthy racing scene.

“We’re very committed to ensure we have a fair playing field for both Hoosier and American race teams,” said Carlton, who emphasized that he wants “to be 100 percent on board with what everyone else is doing.

“I think that’s the best thing we can do for our sport is everyone doing the exact same thing, so everybody has the exact same expectation when they go to the racetrack. I think it helps us all around.”