I will not make the assumption that you already think that you know all there is to know about tires. But several companies - such as Hoosier and American Racer makes tires that says that they are street legal. BARELY!
IN order to use a street tire on the track, you want to find a tire that has a very low number on the sidewall for treadwear , you also want one with a low traction number - but with a lot of tread. One tire that worked well on the street but not so hot in the dirt that I used for years was the Cooper Cobra. Here is the tire I would use - Bridgestone Blizzak WS-50
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tires....=Blizzak+WS-50
Any track that told me that they were going to save me money by making me run street tires is only kidding themselves. Most dirt tracks in Pennsylvania allows their street stock racers to use new / used Late Model Tires.
Rules just gets in the way of racing.
Take for example the Late Model Tire, you have teams in my area that spends days grooving and siping tires just for one race. The first time they run over something and get a flat - they take the tire off the rim and they throw it on a junk pile. I come over and offer them $20 a tire. I take it home and put a patch in it and maybe a implement tube and I have a $125 Late Model Tire that has already been grooved and Siped and I only have about 1/2 a hour to a hour of work in it.
Unless you have a tire shop that is just giving you passenger car tires, there is no way that you can tell me that you can buy a brand new car tire for $20!
The problem with racecars and racetracks is that everyone is out for themselves. If everyone refused to race unless they changed the rules - the track would be forced to change the rules and allow you to use Late Model Tires. But because there is always that one person that dreams of the night when no one shows up and they can make a couple of laps and win a feature, you will always have some idiot that is willing to race on anything with anything.
Then you have the cry babies who already have this big pile of tires and they don't want the rules to change because they are afraid that if the rules were changed - they wouldn't know what they were doing and they would probably no do so good on the track. Then you have the people who has already found a way to cheat up the tires they are running and so they don't want the rules changed either.
I have seen just about every stupid rule in the book right down to track tires and branded tires. Nothing works when it comes to cheating.
In a bad economy - you are better off to get rid of all of those rules and run whatcha brung.
Until the days comes when the tracks learn to make their money off the front gate and not off the back - you will always have racers who spends $1000 to make $200 on the track.