CUP: Goodyear Got It Right At Indianapolis

Sprint Cup

CUP: Goodyear Got It Right At Indianapolis

After seven tests and 13,000 miles, Goodyear believes it has found a tire that can race at next month's Brickyard 400...

Robin Miller | Posted June 16, 2009 Indianapolis, IN

"I ran that tire as hard as I possibly could yesterday and today and everything looks fantastic..." - Jeff Gordon comments during Goodyear tire test at Indy. (Photo: Getty Images)

After seven tests, 13,000 miles and too many compounds to count, Goodyear believes it has found a tire that can race at next month's Brickyard 400.

And Jeff Gordon and Kasey Kahne agree.

"I will guarantee it," declared Gordon when asked if he thought the beleaguered manufacturer had found a solutiuon to last year's NASCAR debacle that saw tires coming apart every 5-10 laps and a parade of yellow flags.

"I ran that tire as hard as I possibly could yesterday and today and everything looks fantastic. As far as I'm concerned, the tire wear is not going to be an issue."

Kahne was involved in six of the seven tests and admitted he was skeptical until recently.

"I think we were all concerned until a couple of weeks ago but I feel confident Goodyear has hit on the right compound because there was no wear of overheating problems the last two days," said Kahne, who tested Monday and Tuesday at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway along with Gordon, Kurt Busch and several other drivers before rain washed things out shortly before noon.

"Last year was a disaster but Goodyear has worked hard and I feel like they've come up with a really good tire so I expect we'll have a good race."

Goodyear's Greg Stucker said it's taken a lot of time, effort and resources to try and conquer Indy's challenging surface, which did not allow the tires to rubber up last July.

"It was a process, it started the day after last year's race, 31 drivers have helped us and we learned a lot from every test," said Stucker. "We developed ways to measure the track surface and we understand when it rubbers in.

"We even grained sections of our own test track like the Speedway's so we could do testing in Akron. We left no stone unturned."

Stucker said that despite all the criticism, Goodyear's management never waivered from sticking with its NASCAR program.

"Everybody has been very supportive and I believe when people think of Goodyear they think of the blimp and auto racing," he said. "But I can tell you that when we left Indy last year the one thing we were clear about was that we were going to get it right.

"And we're confident we've done exactly that."

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

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Robin Miller

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