Goodyear brought two semi-trailers full of Pocono tires to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. (Photo by Jason Smith/Getty Images for NASCAR)
Editor’s note: Over the final three weeks of 2008, SPEEDtv.com will take a look back on the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season and identify the best, the worst and the wackiest of the year that was. This is the latest in our 2008 Year In Review articles.
For the most part, NASCAR’s new-generation Sprint Cup car - formerly known as the Car of Tomorrow - fared well in 2008, its first full season in use.
But anytime you introduce a new variable into the mix, there will be the occasional teething pains and such was the case with the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Historically at the Brickyard, cars aren’t able to go more than 10-15 laps in Friday’s practice sessions before wearing out their tires on the Brickyard’s highly abrasive track surface. In years past, however, the track would “rubber in,” a process whereby rubber from the Goodyear racing tires would wear off the tires and dissolve into a gooey compound that filled in the fine grooves on the track. By the time two days of practice at the track and the first fuel run in the big race was complete, tires were never an issue.
Not this year.
With a higher center of gravity, far less downforce and a distinctly new aerodynamic balance, the new-generation Sprint Cup car placed different loads on the tires than the old-style car did. Instead of the tire rubber turning gooey during practice, it dissolved into a fine powder that simply blew away. The track never rubbered up and instead acted like a cheese grater on the soft Goodyear tires.
During practice on Friday and Saturday, teams complained that tires were wearing out in as few as four laps. Faced with a potentially disastrous situation, NASCAR came up with a Plan B, ordering 800 tires that were supposed to be used in Pocono the following week as backups. In addition, on the morning of the race, NASCAR announced it would throw competition cautions every 10 laps, if needed, to deal with the tire issues.
And that’s basically what happened as the race never went more than 13 consecutive laps under green because of excessive tire wear. Some 52 of 160 laps in the race were run under the yellow flag, with six of 11 caution periods being listed as competition cautions and several others caused by tire failures.
It was a sad spectacle for race fans, who were forced to watch nearly one-third of the race take place with the yellow flag waving. In the end, Jimmie Johnson won his second Brickyard, triumphing over Carl Edwards, Denny Hamlin, Elliott Sadler and Jeff Gordon, but it was anything but a riveting event.
