"These new tires Goodyear brought in
\nweren’t worth a damn."<\/p>\n
So said a thoroughly angered Joe Frasson
\nafter one of the aforementioned Akron-based shoes erupted out from under him at
\nthe Talladega 500 of 1972. Adding insult to injury, James Hylton won that race
\non year-old tires, saying, "I was going with the old rubber anyway. I felt
\nit would be better."<\/p>\n
You think Big Joe Frasson was reminiscing
\nto Tony Stewart of late?<\/p>\n
Drivers who are frank about subjects tend
\nto get in trouble. So chances are Tony Stewart and Joe Gibbs Racing may suffer
\nfrom Stewart’s remarks before and after the Delaware 400 about Goodyear tires.
\nThe upshot is that, as Andy Petree has pointed out in the last couple of years,
\nJGR is one of the handful of teams that gets free tires while the majority of
\nteams have to pay for their rubber.<\/p>\n
JGR may get it from Goodyear, but that
\nwon’t change the accuracy of Stewart’s remarks. For Goodyear’s tires HAVEN’T
\nbeen worth a damn for the last two seasons. The new epidemic of blown right
\nfronts is graphic testimony, and the unraceability of the cars, already
\nexcessive due to having too much power and too little drag (why 135 MPH isn’t
\nenough for Dover has never been explained), is exacerbated due to the lack of
\ngrip or consistency in Goodyear’s shoes.<\/p>\n
And se we got what transpired in the 2001
\nDelaware 400 – an epidemic of tire failures and a generally abysmal level of
\ncompetition. Thirteen lead changes in 400 miles is a woefully inadequate number,
\nand Junior needed the Ricky Rudd-Rusty Wallace contretemps to win because he
\ncould not close on the leader otherwise. Of course tires weren’t the only reason
\nfor this – again, excessive power and overly slick aero makes the cars unable to
\nrace in dirty air, a problem NASCAR dealt with at Daytona and Talladega but
\nwhich it still hasn’t tried to solve elsewhere.<\/p>\n
The only thing that made this Delaware 400
\nmemorable was the epidemic of crashes. Jeff Gordon added to his Rainbow
\nInstigator list by taking out Ron Hornaday, then Rusty imitated his departed
\nbest buddy in Earnhardting Rudd, then Tony Stewart must have thought this was
\n1999 Martinsville and Dale Jarrett was Kenny Irwin’s #28.<\/p>\n
And driver anger is generally high. There
\nis, strangely enough, an upside to this – they’re showing the hunger they need
\nto be competitive, and the intensity level is finally getting where it should
\nbe. Get these cars to where they can RACE and not have to blast each other out
\nof the way to get by, and we’ll see much better competition.<\/p>\n
This weekend saw a great many of us,
\nincluding yours truly, get their initial firsthand encounter with new sports
\nstadium security policies.<\/p>\n
Not just big stadiums are banning coolers
\nand other such paraphernalia – at Stafford Motor Speedway’s delayed regular
\nseason finale on Friday night, a woman and her two children had to go back to
\ntheir car because large bags are not allowed on the grounds. I bring a
\nradio-cassette recorder with headphones to these events and had to transfer my
\ntapes from my large sack to smaller plastic bags provided by the track office.<\/p>\n
The banning of coolers has nothing behind
\nit in terms of improving security. The banning of backpacks and similar large
\nbags likewise has nothing behind it, especially since at large stadiums bag
\nsearches are now compulsory as they are at airports. Once searched, these
\nsecurity types ought to know that a particular bag doesn’t have anything to
\nworry about within.<\/p>\n
Speedway Motorsports tracks will continue
\nto allow coolers, but that policy probably won’t last. They’ll succumb to the
\nsecurity overkill that is wafting through the country’s airports and competition
\nfacilities.<\/p>\n