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What’s The Bigger Story… Tires or Toyota?by Chuck Abrams ~ March 10th, 2008. Filed under: Chuck Checks In!. |
So what will be the biggest story coming out of Atlanta this weekend – Tony Stewart’s unabashed hatred of Goodyear or that Toyota got its first win?
To me, it is the tires. I always expected Toyota to win, just not this soon.
According to the SPEED guys on Sunday, the two BIG stories in the garage area going into the race were the oil cover on Carl Edwards’ car and subsequent docking of points of the 99 team and the rescinding of penalties against Robby Gordon’s team.
While those were talking points by the media at large, I had always thought of the tire issue raised by Tony Stewart last weekend was being ignored. Jeff Gordon and Dale Jr. were also discussing tires but in a more politically correct way, perhaps so they did not get a big slapdown from NASCAR for comments detrimental to stock car racing.
And while the media at large debated the ability of an oil cap to fall off on its own and the points fall out from that, the tire issue was relegated to second class status, and its sister “safety” was also overshadowed by the opportunity to report on mud slinging about possible cheating.
Cheating is a big deal in sports but in NASCAR, if you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’ is an accepted way of doing business by fans and members of the garage. Or at least it used to be. I still have to chuckle about the things that can “go wrong” with a car during a race that cause it to drop lower or have part miraculously fly off to create an advantage. Fines and penalties are OK with me as ways to control that behavior. Maybe because I accept the behind the scenes efforts to best your opponent as old school and innate to the auto racing field.
When the cars can not race side by side for fear of crashing into each other, you have boring racing no matter what Michael Waltrip says. I find good racing and more than 11 cars on the lead lap racing AND entertaining. What I saw at Atlanta on Sunday was neither. This car was not supposed to be as aero dependant and the fact of the matter is, it is. You put an iffy aero car on slick tires and you get what you get.
And while I am not advocating another “tire war”, Chad Knaus has a point. There are only five things that keep the car on the track – downforce and four Goodyear tires. And when those tires fail, safety comes into play. Now that NASCAR has fully implemented the new car body, teams, drivers and now Goodyear and NASCAR are all trying to figure the car out. But NASCAR and Goodyear have a bigger task ahead of them since they should have been ahead of the curve on this.
Just as NASCAR and track owners should have been ahead of the curve on track safety over all. SAFER barriers on the inside of tracks has been a wreck waiting to happen for several years and I am glad that it is getting its due. This issue will not go away just because we are at short tracks the next couple of weeks, mark my words.
Drive fast, turn left and keep the shiny side up. Let me know your thoughts on all this.
Feel free to send Chuck your thoughts on this and other race topics at chucka@turnleftracing.com. The blog at www.turnleftracing.com is down now due to spammers. We will have that back up as soon as we can.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:29 am
I just don’t understand why the tire manufacturer wasn’t involved throughout the development of the car to make sure they had a tire that would work and provide good racing. This is an oversight that just screams to me that the people running NASCAR don’t seem to know what they are doing. I swear the Mikey and DW are both paid by NASCAR, Goodyear and Toyota to only say positive things, no matter how stupid it makes them appear. NASCAR supposedly wants to get back to basics — well, side by side racing would have been a good place to start — it’s a shame we didn’t see it on Sunday. The weather’s getting nicer here in the NE — I’ll be back to just catching the highlights of races soon, unless things improve a great deal, real soon. Bristol was a bore last year - I’m guessing it won’t be different this year. I hear the ratings are up from last year, but I watched the races while Fox had the broadcasts last year too until TNT and ESPN took over, then I was done.
March 11th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Actually , while Mikey really is paid by Toyota
( though i can’t imagine why they would want to continue ), DW is obviously paid to be a shill for Hendrick , and for anyone else that he thinks will benefit his bank account . That goes for Joy amd Larry also . Integrity is not a word anyone could use to describe the FOX NASCAR broadcasts or their on and off air personnel , including the director who gets paid to interupt a battle on the track to show certain cars and sponsors. Neil Bonnett , Ned Jarrett , Bob Jenkins , Benny Parsons , Wally Dallenbach , Buddy Baker , not one of the current crop of rejects can compete with any of them .
March 11th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
On This Week IN NASCAR, Chad Knaus said HE thinks this issue is more about the cars than tires. He maintains that the new cars have 30% less downforce and thhus have created the problem. That plus the bump stops that don’t allow the car, especially the right front, to slowly shift weight. Instead, the shock and spring package that NASCAR mandates means the car goes from one position to banging down suddenly onto the bump stops. So the car goes from tight to loose very quickly as the drivers tries to react or anticipate when the right front will roll over and BANG hit the bump stop. BTW, Mikey hates the bump stops and says they should be outlawed.
But to all your points, Goodyear and NASCAR have done a horrible job of communicating and making a tire AND a car that will do all that was promised. GY has made a tire that is so hard that it slides AND then grinds away causing it to blow at Vegas but hold up at Atlanta. But Atlanta was so bad no one would race side by side for fear of losing control on the slick tires.