A tire off the #17 DeWalt Ford, driven by Matt Kenseth, sits in the pits during the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 27, 2008 in Indianapolis, Indiana. (Geoff Burke/Getty Images Photo)
Sunday’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, historically the second-biggest race on the NASCAR Sprint Cup schedule behind only the Daytona 500, was marred by horrific tire problems.
Steve Addington, crew chief for points leader Kyle Busch succinctly summed up the emotions of a lot of drivers, crewmen, teams and race fans on Sunday. “That was a sorry excuse for a race,” Addington said after watching Busch finish 15th and the entire field struggle all race long.
At no point in the 160-lap race did the track operate under green-flag conditions for more than a dozen consecutive laps, as NASCAR had to throw competition caution flags from the start of the race until the end to prevent right-side tires from failing at speed.
And while competitors credited NASCAR with ensuring a safe race, there is no question that the event will be remembered as the worst of the 15 Sprint Cup races in Brickyard history and one of the most disappointing NASCAR events in recent memory.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Jeff Gordon, a four-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Champion and four-time Brickyard winner. “I really hate that it happened at the Brickyard. It’s such a big race. I think all of us are disappointed with what happened today.”
“We just have to take what we learned today and do a better job next year as a group,” said NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton.
The problem was that the abrasive track surface at Indianapolis Motor Speedway historically absorbs rubber as the race goes on, allowing drivers to go a full fuel run — roughly 35 laps — on a single set of tires. This process, known as “rubbering in” the track never happened on Sunday resulting in a debacle of epic proportions.
“We don’t have the answer as to why that didn’t happen, so we’ve got to go back and look at that and try to figure out how to make it better,” said Goodyear’s Greg Stucker. “… I don’t think anybody likes to race like this, us included.”
“Everybody makes mistakes,” said race runner-up Carl Edwards. “They (Goodyear) just assumed, the way I understand it, they assumed that tire and the rubber was gonna fill in like it has before and everything would be fine. And what happened was it turned into a dust instead of laying into the race track and it just never filled in the gaps, so, yes, it’s their fault but we’re all doing the best we can. I just hope the fans understand this, that nobody wants to see this happen – Goodyear the least, I’m sure. So that’s what it is.”
Edwards was among the more understanding of the drivers. Not everyone saw it that way. “It was a ridiculous race,” said Ryan Newman, who finished 13th in his Penske Racing Dodge. “There was no racing involved other than mandatory cautions, which was ridiculous.”
“You can’t race,” agreed veteran Bobby Labonte, who came home 16th. “Well, you can race for 10 laps and then you just scream because the tires are fixing to blow out. Not very good, not very fun. … Ten laps and a caution, 10 laps and a caution, that’s not racing.”
Tom Jensen is the Senior NASCAR Editor for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to
