Several points.
A. People keep touting the various ST classes if people want to daily drive their autocross car on street tires. I call B.S. on that. ST allows basically SP level of suspension prep, I call that undrivable on many roads, particularly in SE Michigan. Also a top level ST suspension is many many $$'s which many drivers can't afford even if they want to be serious.
B. R-comps are very very different from what they were even a few years ago. When I was serious about autocross BFG R1's were still hot, Hoosier was only just coming on. A set of tires was no more expensive than a set of street tires and would last well. I'd say R comps of 15 years ago are equal to ST tires today. Hoosier changed the playing field by developing what were/are effectively full race tires made DOT legal.
C. Even the DOT legal but is a very gray area. Over on SpecialStage.com recently there was a thread on tires for the up coming tarmac rally New York http://specialstage.com/forums/showthread.php?t=39661&highlight=New+york+Toyo . DOT tires are legal for that so people were thinking R comps. It turns out that many R comps while branded as DOT compliant aren't necessarily Approved by the DOT for highway use. How silly is that? I would say that a Stock class should have fully legal street tires, thus approved by the DOT.
D. 10-15-20 years ago no serious Prepared runners would run 'street tires' (R-comps) The only way to be successful was to run real racing slicks as allowed by the rules. Well these days many top runners DO run R-comps dependant upon the surface, even at Tours and Nationals. That to me shows how sill today's stock class tires have become.
I fully understand how the stock rules evolved, but that's the point, they evolve. I think the next evolution should be either a move to ST tires, or a move to sensible R-comps on an approved list. I doubt that will happen though as companies like Hoosier have made a very successful business model out of exploiting the rules to build race tires branded as street tires and they are very generous to the sport and clubs that have allowed that, the SCCA won't piss of a major contributor.
One more thing while evolving the rules. Front sta bars were allowed as cars of 30+ years ago were almost undrivable understeering pigs as they were predominantly RWD with very little roll resistance and god awful camber curves. It made sense. Well today the bigger issues is getting FWD cars to rotate, so how about a similar allowance for Rear Sta bars. How about one or the other, not both??
