At the last race, the Formula Vee racers had a meeting and basically agreed that an informal voluntary spec tire (for dry conditions) for next year would be a good thing. The consensus was that the American Racer Slicks should be used. Most of us are using them anyways so it wasn't much of a stretch. To emphasize: this is not a rule change but a 'gentle(person)s' agreement to run the same tire.

The main reason for me is that it levels the playing field because the American Racers have much more consistent performance over the life of the tire:

Their advantages:
a) are at least 2/3rds the cost of Hoosiers
b) last at least 1.5 times longer, probably even more.
c)  performance dropoff on each heat cycle is much less than with Hoosiers.
d) and can be installed with simple hand powered tire changer

The negative is that the American Racers are between a second and two seconds slower per lap at Mission.

However there is one more concern that I have discovered on trolling the internet forums. The rumor mill implies that the sell rate of the tires is so low that you run the risk of buying old new stock which means the tire is already aged. I don't know if this true and I don't really know how to verify it one way or the other, but it is a concern, because the biggest benefit of a spec tire is that it levels the playing  field. An aged tire will not perform as well as a fresh tire undermining the main benefit.

Formula Ford class at SCCBC has been using American Racers as an informal spec for years. The track record set and reset by Alan McColl has been done on American Racers. Some of the FFs are not far off the Formula Continental times who use Hoosiers and Goodyears, etc. Getting fresh tires shouldn't be too much of a hurdle.

Just to clarify; we're running American Racers for slicks, and the rains are open to whatever we choose (Hoosiers) to run?

I agree completely and I only wish I had realized it 5 years ago Tire expenses (and to be perfectly honest, the politics around it, mostly with SCCA) are probably the main reason I ended up selling the car.

Unfortunately to a lot of folks, especially across the border, "spec" is a bad word, second only to socialism. Despite everyone running plenty of spec parts on just about every class, of course. Maybe we should start calling them "heartily recommended tires" instead? 

Anyway, I should leave FV alone but I have high hopes that the class will someday move to street radial tires like the Eastern Canada vees have been running forever. As an entry level class that is supposed to be about driving skill and low costs, slicks in general were just a bad idea. The American Racers are probably a step in the right direction, but street tires that last 2 or more seasons in a vee and cost half the price of slicks just make a ton more sense to me.