Goodyear tires played a leading role in both the Allstate 400 at Indianapolis and last weekend's AMP Energy 400 at Talladega. (Gregory Shamus/Getty Images Photo)
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Later, in my time with the Budweiser Cup team, the tires were wildly unpredictable and varied greatly from one set to another. (Including an incident at Sonoma where a tire came apart and was found to have inexpensive masking tape holding several layers together. What if that had been at a much higher-speed track and Dale Jr. had been sent hurtling to the wall?) Is it too much to ask the sole tire supplier to make a safe and consistent tire for the benefit of the drivers, teams and fans?
Goodyear tires will be on a lot of victorious racecars this year. They’ll buy ads to boast of huge numbers of triumphs in every NASCAR category (from the top of the heap down to the local series). They’ll crow about a clean sweep of victories in the top NHRA racing categories.
However, those numbers aren’t what they seem because Goodyear is the only tire in those categories. They are happy to write a large check to buy that exclusivity. It’s no surprise the most common phrase in the Goodyear Racing Tires media portfolio is: “the exclusive supplier of tires for (insert series here).” Why do they avoid direct competition? Because Goodyear has consistently been beaten in nearly every series in which they attempted to compete with other brands.
After the Atlanta race, a disgusted Tony Stewart claimed, “I can't say it's surprising because, I mean, they got run out of Formula One, they got run out of CART, the IRL, they got run out of World Outlaw Sprint cars, they got run out of USAC divisions because they couldn't keep up and make a quality enough product.”
Tony was doing more than venting – he was stating facts. Goodyear withdrew from Formula One in 1998 after Bridgestone won the Drivers and Constructors title. Goodyear then pulled out from both the IRL and Champ Car series after the 1999 season when Firestone proved to be far superior. And now, they are the exclusive NASCAR supplier through the 2012 season.
Yes, punctured or cut tires do happen.
There is little they can do to eliminate that factor entirely. And Goodyear and NASCAR certainly have every right to have an exclusive, high-dollar marketing arrangement to supply tires. But, I’ll ask again: is it too much to ask a sole supplier to provide a consistent and safe product? Will it take a driver being carted from the track with something much more serious than a “little headache?”
The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel
Jade Gurss is the owner of fingerprint, inc., a sports publicity company. He has written two New York Times Best Sellers, including what is believed to be the biggest-selling motorsports book in American publishing history (Driver #8 with Dale Earnhardt Jr.). His two decades of publicity and marketing experience involves nearly every category of motorsports, including nine innovative seasons as NASCAR publicist for the Budweiser brand and Earnhardt Jr. His blog can be seen at:
http://fingerprint.typepad.com
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