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Category: Motorsports

Hey Goodyear, what happened to the Tire of Tomorrow?

Finally, Goodyear issued an official news release Saturday to explain its tire disaster witnessed by the record-setting television crowd watching the Brickyard 400 six days earlier.

OK. Here's what it said. No wait. Is this English? I recognize the words, but it's the order they're in that seems confusing.

It starts with the most obvious admission and then it quickly begins to twist. The language of lawyers and public relations specialists takes over, and in the end it says little we didn't already know.

"All should be assured that no one was more disappointed than we were with the events in Indianapolis," Stuart Grant General Manager of Goodyear tires global racing tires said. "We are the first to admit that we missed the mark with the combination for this race."

First off Stu, you were far from the first to admit this, but go on. And here comes what I suspect Goodyear believed was the the most important part of the message.

"There are many reasons, but they are only important today from the perspective that we learn from those issues and move forward successfully," Grant added.

Oh, I see. This is a "statement," which means Goodyear is only going to tell us what it wants to tell us, and nothing more. It only took six days to come up with this strategy, then NASCAR provided its well-watched web site to put out the message about a "forward focus," and nobody gets to ask any questions.

That's like the cop directing people away from the scene of a triple axe murder by saying, "Nothing to see here. Move along."

In other words, Goodyear isn't about to talk about what really went wrong. The implication is that it isn't useful for anyone to know what led to Goodyear's dangerously flawed decision making at Indianapolis.

Well, there is a hint of what went wrong buried deep in the statement. Goodyear and NASCAR talked "a couple of years ago" about building a larger tire for the anticipated larger Car of Tomorrow -- but the new car never got a new tire. The old tire that also happens to be the same tire used by the Nationwide and Craftsman Truck series is what is still being used.

Hey, how hard is this? You considered building a more heavy duty tire for the new car, but you didn't. Why? Was that NASCAR's decision or Goodyear's?

Jimmy Johnson said after the Atlanta debacle this spring that he understood Goodyear was trying to save money by building one identical tire for all three series on the weekends when the trucks and Nationwide series all run the same track. Well, Indy was a stand-alone event so Goodyear tried something creative and it backfired.

Mike Harris with Associated Press went after the the new tire angle with a story from Pocono that says the bigger tire is back on the drawing board. It will be taller, wider and will contain more air to avoid heat pressure buildup. It also will be stronger at the "bead" where the tire seals to the steel wheel. That's also a concession to heat buildup.

But, here's the kicker it will take two years to get that new tire to the track. Now, if it had been built when you first talked about it with NASCAR two years ago we would have seen a real race at Indy last weekend and the drivers wouldn't have had to risk their lives.

Who decided against this two years ago?

Goodyear came early this season with a very hard compound tire that clearly said it was worried about the heavy car wearing tires out. Crews cranked radical front end setups into their cars to get grip, the tires overheated, internal pressures skyrocketed, the beads melted and the tires exploded. Atlanta was only the worst example.

After Atlanta, Goodyear soften the compound and apparently its engineers have been walking that dangerously thin tight rope all season long. At Indy, Goodyear tried something different. We just haven't heard what yet. The result was lots of rubber dust and right-rear tire surfaces that ground down to the cords in 10 laps. Indy's surface was milled to include course grooves three years ago, and so was the surface at Lowes Motor Speedway in Charlotte so the surface friction was no surprise.

Remember the scene at the end of the first Indiana Jones movie, when the frustrated Dr. Jones asks those mysterious U.S. bureaucrats, where is the Ark of the Covenant? He's told its being examined by "Top men." Does the next quote from Goodyear's Mr. Grant sound familiar?

"The knowledgeable people in our business understand the solution to this issue involves all elements of the equation. We are committed to working to bring those elements together in a manner that will produce consistent great racing."

I just want to know who decided that the Car of Tomorrow would take the track without a Tire of Tomorrow.