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Stewart Derides Goodyear

After a couple of years of cars hurtling into the wall at over 150mph due to blow outs, blistering tires and the calls that it’s the car of tomorrow that is unwieldy not the tires, one voice has come forward in a sea of media, drivers and officials who’ve been silent, Tony Stewart. Stewart who finished second to Joe Gibbs Racing teammate, Kyle Busch in the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway spoke to Matt Yocum of Fox Sports on national television deriding Goodyear and the performance of their racing tires. Stewart informed America, “That’s the most pathetic racing tire I’ve ever been on in my professional career. They (Goodyear) exited out of Formula One, they exited out of the IRL, they exited out of CART, they exited out of (the) World of Outlaws and there’s a reason for that, ’cause Goodyear can’t build a tire that’s worth a crap. So if I were Goodyear, I’d be really embarrassed about this weekend and what they brought us here (to Atlanta) this weekend. It didn’t keep us from winning the race, how we got to second (place) I don’t know. I’m really proud of our guys on the team, I’m really proud of their pit stops. Stewart remarked, “But, it was ridiculous to have to race on a tire like that this today. Not at this form of racing, if they can’t do better, they ought to just pull out of this sport and save us all a bunch of headaches. ‘Cause I guarantee that Hoosier, Firestone or someone could come in here and do a lot better job then they’re doing right now.”

Later, Stewart was quoted off-camera, “NASCAR needs to take somebody else’s bid and not let Goodyear buy their five-year contracts and put us in this position. I don’t think NASCAR would have predicted this was going to happen, and I don’t think NASCAR would have let this happen if they thought this was going to be the outcome. It’s unacceptable at this level of racing to be on a tire that is that bad. If that’s the best effort they can put forth on giving us a tire to come to Atlanta with, I honestly wish they would retire and go do something else.”

Earlier during the race weekend, Stewart who slammed the wall last Sunday at Las Vegas when his right front tire blew out spoke out about the incident, “There isn’t anybody, I don’t think, who is happy with the tires we have got,” Stewart said. “After 10 years in the Cup Series, you learn to be highly disappointed with everything that Goodyear does.”

Even Jeff Gordon was critical of the tires at Atlanta, “We’re on the edge,” Gordon said. “It’s a handful. We’re all sliding all over the place.” Later he added, “I felt like I was going to crash every single lap,” Gordon said about his run. “I’m exhausted right now. I feel like I’ve run a thousand miles here. That was the hardest day I have ever had at Atlanta, especially for a top-five finish. This car, this tire, at this track was just terrible.”

After the race, Dale Earnhardt, Jr. was quoted, “This is just a bad combination. This tire at this track, just a poor combination.” Earnhardt was also quoted by ESPN.com, “I know Goodyear doesn’t like criticism, but I’m not going to sit here and put up with this. We couldn’t race side by side or we would wreck. Hopefully we can all get along and do something about this.”

Before the race, Justin Fantozzi, marketing manager for Goodyear Racing, was quoted, “The company is analyzing data from Las Vegas,” but he was confident it brought good tires to Atlanta. “For 54 years we’ve been involved in NASCAR,” Fantozzi said. “The process that we go about to make the tire recommendations are sound.”

Additionally, Fantozzi said Goodyear is continuously looking for a better tire, and that won’t change now. “We’re never stagnant, we’ve got a whole crew of engineers back at the shop that you never see, analyzing data and working on next year’s tire,” Fantozzi said. “But at the end of the day, we always err for safety.”

“Getting into attacks in the media is not the right place,” Fantozzi said after the race. “We are tremendously proud of the wear rates we saw here today. As always, we bring the safest tire we know how to build. It’s up to the race teams to go as fast as they can.” Fantozzi was asked what Goodyear can do to improve the situation. “We’ll do the same exact thing we do after every race,” he said. “We’ll go over the data and see where it leaves us. Driver comments are part of the data set. We look at everything and make a decision. We’re not stagnant by any means.”

Earnhardt begged Goodyear not to bring the tire the test scheduled for the historic Darlington Speedway tomorrow, “Please don’t bring this tire to Darlington,” Earnhardt said. “As horrible as today was, that would be worse. I’m not part of the test, but I’m going just to ask drivers how it feels out there.”

It was reported that Fantozzi said the tires Goodyear will use at the Darlington test are different from the one used Sunday.

Stewart is a lone voice, in a sea of yes men in motorsports. Back in the day when someone like A.J. Foyt or Jackie Stewart criticized the sport some of the media also scoffed at them. Looking back thirty year later, history proved that many of the criticisms that Jackie Stewart voiced were correct. I’m not saying Goodyear is making an unsafe tire, but for someone who has been watching racing for over thirty years, something smells fishy. Stewart and to a certain extent, Gordon and Earnhardt are the only ones saying something about the smell.

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