Tyre Issues at the Brickyard (F1/NASCAR)

[wedge]

Did you actually read the Indy Cup Race thread on the Nascar Forum?

A manufacturer brings a crap tyre - its a joke

the organisers try to continue running the race its - its a joke because its a farce

if the drivers park their cars - its a joke because they should've put on a show.

its a no win situation!

[BobbyC]

NASCAR also has experience with such disasters -- and it was 39 years ago and their precedence was in 1969 at the first Talladega 500.

Tyres were a question at the first race to be held at Talladega and a drivers' strike ensued by the Professional Drivers Association, organised for this specific race concern. NASCAR responded with safety car sessions every 25 laps to prevent a disaster, and the race ended without crashes.

NASCAR also had the 2005 races at Lowe's Motor Speedway where diamond grinding led to a controversial incident where 22 safety car sessions took place -- many of them crashes.

2005 Coca-Cola 600 - Lap and Driver:
6 - Truex, 10 - Kurt Busch, 93 - Debris, 101 - Five car incident, 115 - J. Gordon (another track breakup), 139 - Johnny Sauter (tyre failure), 149 - E. Sadler, 162 - Kurt Busch, 200 - Wimmer, 209 - Kvapil, 216 - Marlin and Mears crash, 227 - McMurray, 239 - McMurray, 246 - DEI Teammates Waltrip and Earnhardt Jr Big One, 266 - Debris, 288 - Blaney, 308 - Rudd (Engine), 355 - Kahne (tyre blowout), 368 - Blaney (engine), 377 - Five car incident, 391 - Nemechek

NASCAR chose to play it safe, much to the delight of race sponsor Allstate. No cars were officially knocked out by crashes (all of them came back), and engine failures knocked two cars out. All 43 cars ran at least 91 laps.

So what they did Sunday was had precedent in 1969 at Talladega, and even had precedence in 1998 in Atlanta because of concerns caused by racing at night for the first time at the circuit because of rain in the day (the IRL race that year was the first to be run on the newly installed lights; Atlanta now runs pole qualifying and one Truck race at night).

[Bagwan]

Is this Goodyear's fault ?
Was '05 Bridgestone's fault ?

Who was it that had the track ground up into an LP record ?

Neither a grooved tire or slick can run that oval safely .
And , according to a few drivers , 12 laps was too many .

Tony has a serious problem with his track .

[ArrowsFA1]

As far as I'm corncerned the purpose of the forum is to raise questions and exchange opinions. I just thought that recent events in NASCAR raised interesting comparisions with the 2005 US GP. Nowhere did I say that the situation was the same, just similar.

The point I was making related to what people thought of the ways the two situations were dealt with. Were they dealt with differently? If so why? And how different were the outcomes?

Still you are "welcome" to throw mud at F1, while criticizing Mosley for his private life!

It would have been interesting to have the views of those who follow F1 and NASCAR. Instead the same old **** gets brought up again which attempts to kill reasonable discussion

And if they had two tire suppliers and a part of the teams wouldn't have had tire problems than they would still have been all in it together?

A relevant question I think Joe Chitwoood's comments suggest that NASCAR would have approached that situation differently because NASCAR appears to put the fans interests first. That said, was a 'race' interrupted by competition yellows, and run at a reduced pace 'better' or 'worse' than what we saw in 2005?

Did you actually read the Indy Cup Race thread on the Nascar Forum?

Haven't had the chance yet. Perhaps that would answer my questions.

[ArrowsFA1]

NASCAR also has experience with such disasters -- and it was 39 years ago and their precedence was in 1969 at the first Talladega 500...

Thanks for the background info

[thelurker]

Is this Goodyear's fault ?
Was '05 Bridgestone's fault ?

Who was it that had the track ground up into an LP record ?

Neither a grooved tire or slick can run that oval safely .
And , according to a few drivers , 12 laps was too many .

Tony has a serious problem with his track .

The IRL Firestones don't seem to have a problem with the track. Nor did the F1 Bridgestones (it was Michelin that had the problem in 05). Given that NASCAR has had several tire issues with this new car (see Tony Stewart's comments after the Atlanta race), I'd say it isn't the Indy surface thats to blame. Goodyear brought last years tire hoping it would work with the COT, it didn't. Had they done the propor testing, this likely wouldn't have happened.

[ArrowsFA1]

Had they done the propor testing, this likely wouldn't have happened.

That rather backs up Dale Jnr's comment that ""when I was here [testing], they were wearing out in five laps."

[ioan]

So, there are similarities in the end, and it's about the two tire companies, Michelin and Goodyear, not doing the job as well as they should have.

[ArrowsFA1]

Given that we're talking about two different tyre companies (Goodyear & Michelin) having the problems, a common factor appears to be the track surface. In NASCAR's case a contributory factor also appears to be the characteristics of the current car.

Another common factor is that Bridgestone (F1) and Firestone (Indycar) are one and the same company, and they do not appear to have suffered the same problems as their rivals.

[Bagwan]

If I'm not mistaken , they've had issues at other tracks where grinding has been introduced .

It runs to another question , though .
If tires that are fine at tracks that have not been diamond ground get chewed up , is it a good thing ?

I suppose the idea was to improve grip laterally , but if the result has the cars unable to run 12 laps consecutively without serious issues , was it really an improvement ?

Presumably , the life of ANY make of tire would be shortened by the grooves if they tear these ones up this badly . This was at least better than the 5 laps Jr. mentioned .


I wouldn't expect that track owners are lining up at the diamond grinders door right now .
That's unless they want to groove all the tracks , and I doubt it .