Firestone testing NASCAR tires
9 Comments Quote selected text Published December 22nd, 2008 in NASCAR NewsIs there a tire war in NASCAR’s future? Despite efforts to remain low key, Firestone was discovered testing stock car tires at Homestead-Miami Speedway this past week. A Chip Ganassi Racing ARCA stock car driven by Scott Pruett tested on the road course. But an executive with Firestone said the test was nothing more than that, a test.
“It was not a Firestone test and it was not a NASCAR test, it was a technical exercise to try and develop current stock car technology,” Al Speyer, executive director of Firestone/Bridgestone motorsports told SpeedTV.com’s Robin Miller. “It was a brandless program. There was no name on the tires or the uniforms or even the tire machines. And the car was painted gray,” he added. “We were just trying to be as low key as possible.”
Goodyear is the current sole supplier of tires to NASCAR and has been since 2000. But competitors criticized them several times during the 2008 season especially after the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which was reduced to 10-12 laps segments due to tire failures. The current contract for Goodyear runs through 2011.
“NASCAR did not come to us and ask us to test,” said Speyer. “But we’re currently talking to a lot of sanctioning bodies, ARCA, USAR and NASCAR and, yes, we’re interested in developing a stock car tire. “But we don’t have a specific timetable or contract with anybody,” he added.
LOL This story is a joke,ganassi is a loser in NASCAR and they were using pruett on a road course in a ARCA car which is basically a nationwide car but like nascar would listen to any of there input give me a break…
We can only hope that they replace Goodyear
Give Hoosier a shot!!!
I do believe nascar needs to tell goodyear to get there act together,but still I wouldnt put anything into this so called test and matbe they should look else where maybe hoosier etc but keep it to just 1 company supplying tires or it would be even a bigger mess with tire problems.
Well to be fair Goodyear does get it right once in a while but this isnt 1960 either and these guys dont run 3 or 4 races a week so they need their tires to be right every week.
George Thompson wrote:
I do agree with that but their has been a few major problems that shouldnt have hadnt but its not just goodyear the new car lead to some of it.
Happened*
BADYEAR sucks nobody has challenged them, they have bought there place in Nascar, we need some good tire wars. Nascar says it is in for the competition then why not allow teams to choose what tire they run. Nascar has a control complex and needs to get over it. Thats just my opinion.
I say let the major tire brands compete to be the provider for each race. Get a standard set of 6 test cars, have them run each set for a specified number of laps, and choose the one with the best durability.