Goodyear tires junk at Bristol
Sprint Cup Series teams will now use tires originally designated for Fontana and Michigan with Goodyear expected to bring in 1200-1300 tires from a Charlotte-area warehouse later this evening. CBS
Due to severe wear on right-side tires and their failure to "rubber in" with the track, Goodyear is rushing in a new compound for Saturday's Nationwide Series and Sunday's Sprint Cup Series races at Bristol Motor Speedway. About 1,200 tires are being shipped from the Charlotte, N.C., area. Usually, as drivers run more practice laps, rubber from the tire grounds into the track's surface and that alleviates excessive tire wear.
"With the lack of improvement it was obvious we needed to react," Goodyear's Rick Heinrich said Friday. Goodyear officials said the situation was different from what happened at Indianapolis in 2008, when tires wore out so fast that NASCAR had to mandate pit stops every nine laps of green-flag racing. Goodyear changed the compound for the right-side tire in the Nationwide and Cup Series in an attempt to provide more grip.
But it became obvious early on Friday that the approach was not working. #11-Denny Hamlin said he was able to run only 30 laps, about 100 laps short of a fuel run, on the right-side tires Goodyear brought to the track. Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition, said tests likely will be scheduled before the August race in Bristol to make sure there is no repeat of what happened to Hamlin. Pemberton said he supported Goodyear's decision to react quickly. "There's tires in the barn ready to race anywhere and everywhere we go," Pemberton said. ESPN
[Editor's Note: How many years has Goodyear been making tires for Bristol and they still cannot get it right? What a sorry state of affairs.]