NASCAR needs to step up to prevent future debacles
By Lee Spencer
You're a NASCAR fan. You bought the tickets, piled your loved ones into the family vehicle, drove hundreds of miles at more than four bucks a gallon to come to the most venerable track in auto racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and watch the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.
Sunday, you got ripped off. And you deserve a refund.
The only racing that took place at the Brickyard was off of pit road and in the last seven laps of the race.
Sunday's event more closely resembled the All-Star Race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, only with 10 heats and no inversions of the field leading up to the main event.
Polesitter Jimmie Johnson led 71 laps and won the final contest off pit road with a two tire-stop on Lap 151. Johnson "ran like hell" and held off Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Elliott Sadler and teammate Jeff Gordon on the restart for his second Indianapolis Motor Speedway win in his last three starts.
That was the only contest of the day.
Johnson's 35th career win tied him with Mark Martin for 17th on the all-time win list, but even NASCAR's defending champ agrees, "Nobody wanted to be in this position."
So give back the trophy and offer the fans a refund or at the least gas money that was spent to get to the track with your $500,000 race winnings. Certainly, the fans across town at O'Reilly Raceway Park on Thursday, Friday and Saturday experienced better entertainment than what NASCAR's top tour delivered on Sunday.
The Allstate 400 was cluttered by 11 cautions — six of which were competition yellows prescribed by NASCAR to evaluate the condition of the tires after cords were exposed on many cars on Saturday during practice. Unlike years past when rubber accumulates on the track over the weekend to cushion the abrasive surface, sufficient green flag racing conditions never materialized for the new car and tire combination.
"I knew when there wasn't any rubber laying down on the track — I couldn't see any rubber on the track — I thought we were in trouble there," Edwards said. "I know everybody was hoping that it would get better by Lap 30 or 40, but I knew we were in trouble then."
And the officials milked those non-incident caution periods with 70 mile per hour laps to conserve the "Indy" tires to the end, which led to an average race speed of 115.117 mph — the second slowest Cup event held during the 15-year run.
Goodyear tested tire combinations on April 22 and 23 with Kurt Busch, Brian Vickers and Dale Earnhardt Jr., but the additional laps didn't offer an advantage to any of the three drivers — two of which ended up in the pits before the first rescheduled competition caution. Earnhardt, who tested the chosen tire code, pitted on Lap 7 when he felt his cords coming through the rubber. "When I tested here they were wearing out (after) five laps, too." Busch spun out on Lap 14 coming out of Turn 1 and collected Kevin Harvick in the process. Vickers qualified 17th but had engine issues and was never a factor throughout the event.
If there were a lemon law for race tires, Goodyear's 4170 and 4172 codes would top the list.
"The rubber coming off the tire was too fine. It was like sugar," said one tire specialist who asked for anonymity. "That's why the track never rubbered up. The whole back of the tire was dust. And everyone could see the fans leaving by Lap 100. It was the most disgusting display I've ever seen at a racetrack. The fans that come back deserve half-price tickets."
However, in Goodyear's defense, there has not been sufficient time to anticipate all the variables associated with a new car that forces an additional 100-pound load on the right side tires. Greg Stucker, Goodyear Director of Race Tire Sales, wasn't willing to associate the tires problem with the lack of experience with the new car.
"It's nobody's fault, it's the package," Stucker said. "That's what we need to understand. We had a full-scale test. We didn't have an open test like we did last year, so certainly, we didn't have as many cars on the racetrack as we did last year.
"We tested as early as we could on the car and we were involved in the early testing, so we tried to know what to expect early on and tried to be a part of those decisions."
Stucker still isn't certain whether the problem could have been prevented.
"Obviously, the tread wear didn't improve as we thought it would over the course of the afternoon," Stucker said. "We don't have the answer as to why that didn't happen, so we've got to go back and look at that and try to figure out how to make it better.
"This is the same compound we raced last year and the wear improved over the course of the day to the point where we could run the full stops. That didn't happen today, so we need to understand why. I don't think anyone likes to race like this — us included. We're going to try to figure out what we need to do to make it better, so that's what we're here for."
There's no doubt that a full series test must occur at the Brickyard before the tour returns to race in 2009 and with ample time for Goodyear to develop a competitive tire package. After all, this is the second-most prestigious race on the Sprint Cup schedule.
"I really hate that this happened at the Brickyard, it's such a big race," said Gordon, a four-time winner at the track. "I think all of us are disappointed in what went on here today. It was a great shootout there at the end.
"I can't remember where we've ever had one quite like this. I know at Charlotte you had to be careful. You couldn't push too hard. But we could go a lot more laps that what we could go here today. I've never seen anything like this."
Both the sanctioning body and competitors agreed on Sunday that it was better to err on the side of caution. Winning car owner Rick Hendrick applauded NASCAR "for keeping it safe."
Still, it's the unmitigated danger of racing that keeps fans at the edge of their seats. It's not enough to tell the fans, "We tried, see y'all next week," when people are exiting the track before the checkered flag waves.
NASCAR's fans deserve better than the show that was put on at the Brickyard Sunday. A lot better.
FOXSports.com
Blame circulates for tire debacle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway
NASCAR, drivers and Goodyear try to figure out tire troubles after nearly one-third of the Allstate 400 was run under caution.
By Jim Peltz
INDIANAPOLIS -- Well before NASCAR's Jimmie Johnson smudged his lips by kissing the bricks to celebrate his second win at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, everyone watching the race had the same question:
How could this happen?
Johnson prevailed at one of the strangest NASCAR Sprint Cup races on record, an event normally filled with the prestige of Indy's history and tradition but, on Sunday, one that dissolved into a fiasco over the cars' tires.
The 15th running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard was plagued by tires that couldn't last more than 10 or 15 laps without shredding apart on the 2.5-mile speedway's abrasive surface.
So NASCAR threw the caution flag every dozen laps or so, allowing teams to bolt on fresh rubber. But that meant the 160-lap race turned into a series of 10- or 12-lap heats.
By the time Johnson's Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet took the checkered flag, there had been a race-record 52 laps run under yellow -- or nearly one-third of the race, considered by many one of NASCAR's crown-jewel events with more than 200,000 in attendance.
The race's 43 drivers had mixed reactions to NASCAR's contingency plan. And although tire supplier Goodyear came in for much of the flack, some said there was blame to go around for everyone: Goodyear, NASCAR and the teams.
"We as a sport should've done better and I've just got to apologize to the fans," said Brian Vickers, who finished 42nd. "I'm embarrassed."
Driver Bobby Labonte, who finished 16th, said "you just wanted to scream. Ten laps and a caution, 10 laps and a caution, that's not racing."
But Dale Earnhardt Jr., who came in 12th, said "I was proud of the way NASCAR handled it. I mean, that was the only way we could put on a race today. I've never seen nothing like it."
NASCAR, Goodyear and the teams all know about Indy's pavement, but this was the first year that NASCAR's new Car of Tomorrow was used at the Brickyard. The car is known for causing more wear on the right-side tires than the previous car.
Earnhardt, Vickers and Kurt Busch tested the COT at Indy in April, and it was believed that once enough rubber was laid down on the track by practice runs, the tires Goodyear brought for the race would hold up.
But that "rubber-in" process didn't happen quickly enough, and everyone knew they had a problem after the final practice Saturday.
Goodyear shipped in 800 additional tires scheduled for next week's race at Pocono Raceway in Pennsylvania, but ultimately they weren't needed.
Even so, in the interest of safety and getting the race completed, NASCAR opted for the frequent caution periods.
"We tried to put our best foot forward and make the best judgment calls that we could getting prepared for this race," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition.
"You know, everybody's got a little skin in the game here," he said in reference to sharing the blame. "The teams knew it. We knew it. Goodyear knew it. I think that's why you saw everybody working together . . . to do everything we could to manage the tire [and] put on the best race we could for the fans."
Earnhardt agreed, saying "NASCAR did what they had to do. That was terrible at the start of the race.
"I helped tire test here," he said. "Blame it on me if you want to. But when I was here they were wearing out [after] five laps, too."
latimes.com.