A potentially serious tire problem with Goodyear’s new Daytona 500 tires developed last night during the first hours of SpeedWeeks practice for tonight’s Bud Shootout kickoff, and some drivers, according to crews, are “scared.” [this was noted during Speed Channel’s coverage of Budweiser Shoot practice when #8-Earnhardt Jr. and #19-Mayfield cut down tires and #01-Nemechek, the fastest, showed heavy tire wear, all were the right rear]. Greg Zipadelli, the crew chief for Stewart, says the problem of delamination includes both right-rear and right-front tires, indicating to him that it’s not a chassis problem but a tire production problem. Tommy Baldwin, crew chief for #9-Kasey Kahne, says the problem also apparently included a left-rear tire problem with at least one tire on Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car, indicating a more widespread issue. “It looks like a delamination problem,” Baldwin said. “But it seems we always have a little problem in practice but never in the race. We’ll see Saturday. Hopefully we don’t. But it could be a serious problem all week.” NASCAR’s John Darby said Goodyear engineers were studying the problem. “We’ve had probably five or six isolated issues,” Darby said. “Goodyear is still checking into it, and we’ll meet with them in the morning.”(Winston Salem Journal), Noticed and mentioned during Speed Channel’s coverage of Budweiser Shoot practice, the ‘Goodyear’ yellow letters are much larger this year on the tire.(2-12-2005)
UPDATE: Complaints about tire problems during the first two [Bud Shootout] practice sessions led Goodyear to pull about 300 tires from circulation Saturday. The tread from #8-Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s tire split during the first practice session Friday, and #01-Joe Nemechek had nearly the same thing happen in the second session. Goodyear engineers lined up all the serial numbers of the tires it had distributed to teams and discovered the ones that had problems came from the same batch. So the company pulled all the tires from that batch as a precaution. Goodyear said it was investigating why the tread was splitting, and officials stressed to teams that there will not be a tire shortage leading up to the Daytona 500.(ESPN.com/AP)(2-13-2005)
UPDATE 2: The tire problems encountered by several Nextel Cup teams last week appear to have been remedied. The problem involved treads that were slightly separating from the tires. At high speeds, the slight separations became major. Goodyear engineers determined that all the problem tires were from the same batch. The tires were replaced, and there have been no problems since.(Kansas City Star)(2-14-2005)
