Everyone wants to know what caused the problems with the Goodyear tires in the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Speedway last week. However, nobody wants to know more than Stu Grant, general manager global race tires.
Adding insult to injury, the airlines lost Grant's single piece of luggage on his return flight from Indy to Cleveland on the day after the race. Nothing like getting a swift kick from an unlikely source when your down.
Over the course of the past week, Grant has been able to narrow the focus in his investigation through a process of elimination. Two-time defending NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson wants answers to the same questions Grant is asking.
“I think at the end of the day, we need to find out why the tire rubber would not lay into the track and why it turned into a powder," Johnson said during his required media appearance on Friday. "It appears that at the test session, we didn’t have that problem. We had a lot longer runs on that tire. We also saw this problem at Dover, where it just turned into a powder and didn’t actually lay into the track. So I think when we get to the root of that problem, we’ll be in good shape."
Grant's team of engineers in Akron have carefully ruled out several possible issues that could have led to the problem of the rubber dusting up as it wore from the tires. Goodyear keeps logs of the different combinations of materials used to manufacture the tires. Those combinations had not changed from 2006/2007 to 2008. Goodyear then went to their suppliers to make sure the individual materials had not been altered, also.
Grant is comfortable stating the tire used at Indianapolis was made up of the same materials in the same combinations under the same manufacturing process. Simply put, the tire itself was ruled out as a variable.
And the track, had it changed from previous years? No, the track had not changed from previous years. The diamond grinding was done years ago. However, the dept of the grinding, according to Grant, was a contributing factor to the problem, acerbated by the only variable in the entire weekend's equation.
The one change from previous years was the car itself. Which explains, at leas to this writer, why NASCAR was willing to step up and take the blame for a race marred by "competition cautions".
The next step in the process, from Grant's perspective, is to do computer modeling using what is now known about how the new car slid the right front and rear tires through the corners. Information from that exercise will give the company information they need to formulate a compound capable of overcoming the forces of the new car and be able to stick to the track surface.
Grant says there are "glues" which can be added in the process which would assist the rubber in sticking to the track surface.
Always candid, Grant admitted there were things that could have been done which might have alleviated the severity of the issue. Tires could have been drug around the track for several hours throughout the night on Saturday. Some sort of fast drying sealer might have been applied to reduce the abrasive nature of the racing surface. Either of those efforts "might" have been helpful. Why weren't they done? Again, being candid, Grant stated that even as late as Sunday morning before the race Goodyear representatives and NASCAR were of the belief the track would eventually rubber in. It just never did.
2008 was originally scheduled as the second of two transitions years for the Car of Tomorrow. Car owners pushed NASCAR fully implement the car this year in order to reduce the cost of maintaining two types of race cars. That decision has put Goodyear behind the eight ball on a couple occasions this year, the first being Atlanta.
Goodyear responded to the issues at Atlanta and they will do the same with the issues at Indy. Already two test sessions have been planned before the circuit returns to the famed speedway in 2009. Don't be surprised if that becomes three or even four if that is what it takes to develop a race tire specifically to guarantee the best possible racing possible.
And, Goodyear will not be alone in the effort. Those are the positives that have already come from one of the sports most embarrassing moments.
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