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Convinced that Goodyear had brought an inferior tire to the Atlanta race, Tony Stewart, who obviously hasn’t been to anger management classes in some time, railed against the tire maker. “I’m going home and taking everything that has Goodyears off and put Firestone on and feel a lot safer,” Stewart said. “It’s a shame these teams that work so hard are being dictated by a company incapable of building tires fit for a street car.”
I guess Tony has forgotten all about those exploding Firestones that were causing Ford Explorers to flip over a few years back.
As noted in a previous blog entry, Tony and 'his lovable personality', is always at the forefront of ranking on about something. Maybe he goes to far, but he does get noticed, and that can be very important. Perhaps he has company of, as noted in another previous blog entry, more 'passive' drivers, who don't like to speak out as much as he. Hmmm, who does? Jr. has joined him, and that's interesting. Goodyear does have a monopoly and that's always a little bit scary, but when Hoosier as well as Goodyear was supplying tires for the top tier, Nascar decided that they didn't like that. I can't remember what their reasoning was at the time, but I'm sure it made sense to them. And then -- Firestone...blaah! Ford...blaah!!
Jeez, I forgot to say, nice bit of alliteration, Mike!
Thanks, Canfan.
NASCAR drivers need a fearless spokesman like Tony Stewart to vocalize what they all better be thinking.
All the tire failures at LVMS, combined with the lack of grip in the tires at Atlanta shows Goodyear is far where they need to be in terms of tire development for the car of today.
Anyone been listening to Chad Knaus? I'm not a JJ fan, but I do think Knaus is one of, if not the, smartest crew chiefs out there. He says it's the car, not the tires. 35 percent less downforce is a lot for a (safe) tire to compensate for.
Thanks for bringing that up. I wanted to include Chad's comments in the original post, but I'm trying to keep these things as short as possible.