CUP: Goodyear Investigating Slight Cup Tire Tearing At ACS

Sprint Cup

CUP: Goodyear Investigating Slight Cup Tire Tearing At ACS

Goodyear is working with about dozen teams to figure out why left-front tires were tearing at the beginning of practice runs at Auto Club Speedway...

Bob Pockrass | http://www.scenedaily.com | Posted October 10, 2010 Fontana, CA

The tearing on the shoulder of some Goodyear tires after Cup practice in California doesn't look good but did not result in any air loss or handling issues. (Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Goodyear is working with about dozen teams to figure out why the left-front tire was tearing at the beginning of runs during Sprint Cup practice Saturday at Auto Club Speedway in California.

The issue seemed isolated to about a dozen teams and most of the top teams were not affected, Goodyear Product Manager Rick Heinrich said Saturday after the final Cup practice.

It is not a heat issue, and because teams either have the issue or they don’t, Goodyear doesn’t believe the problem would be from a bad batch. The tearing, which occurred on the shoulder of the tire, does not look good but did not result in any air loss or handling issues, Heinrich said. Teams noticed the problem when they looked at the tires after they came off the track.

“It has managed to improve somewhat but we’re struggling to get on top of it,” Heinrich said. “It’s just damage right at the radius of the shoulder. It hasn’t resulted in any kind of air loss or problems on the race track.

“The damage is isolated to the rubber on the shoulder along the radius. The rubber there is fairly thick. It’s definitely undesirable. I’m not sure you would know it until you came in, but naturally we’re going to run more laps tomorrow.”

VIDEO: Cup Qualifying - Fontana Jamie McMurray captures the pole at ACS. (Image: SPEED)

It is the same tire that teams ran last week at Kansas Speedway.

“It’s definitely not heat,” Heinrich said. “It happens in a handful of laps. If it’s going to happen, it happens early. We’re still working through the process of trying to understand what’s causing it. … We’re looking to help people find that common denominator. The engineers are working right now to put all the pieces together.”

The left-side tires in the Nationwide Series are different than Sprint Cup this weekend, so there was not a concern of the same issue happening during the Nationwide race Saturday afternoon.

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