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CUP: NASCAR Seeking Solutions
Written by: Tom Jensen   
07/29/2008
Harrisburg, N.C.
 
Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President of competition talks with a Goodyear Tire official about tire issues during the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard. (Photo by Jerry Markland/Getty Images for NASCAR) ยป More Photos

NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said Tuesday that the sanctioning body and Goodyear are still trying to understand why the track surface at Indianapolis Motor Speedway failed to “rubber in” as it had in years past, resulting in a chaotic and dismal Allstate 400 at the Brickyard on Sunday.

While the IMS surface historically has been abrasive in practice prior to the race, usually by the time the race is run, rubber from the tires adheres to the surface of the track, a process known as rubbering in. And once the track is rubbered in, tire wear ceases being an issue and cars can go roughly a full fuel load — about 35 laps — on a single set of tires.

But that never happened at Indy last weekend. Instead, as rubber wore off the tires, it turned into a fine, dust-like powder and didn’t stick to the racing line. As a result, the cars couldn’t go more than 12 laps without blowing right-side tires. Nearly one-third of Sunday’s race was run under yellow-flag conditions because the right-side tires wouldn’t last.

Pemberton said Tuesday that he and officials from NASCAR and Goodyear are still trying to figure out why.

“That’s where we’re confused,” Pemberton said during NASCAR’s weekly conference call on Tuesday. “We had an extensive call this morning with Goodyear, quite lengthy, and they’re looking into things to see if there’s something. Right now, the right sides … it’s the same compound. I was assured that it was the same compound as we’ve run there the last three races, basically. The left sides were softer to help the driving part of the car and the construction was a little bit different.”

And that’s left a lot of unanswered questions.

“It is something we have seen in the past, but I don’t think we’ve seen the powder to that extent,” said Pemberton. “We’re still working on it. We’re trying to find out what was different, if anything. Everybody’s pointing to the fact that the rubber had a little bit dryer or dustier look to it. So we’re going to look into it and find out exactly what it is.”

Pemberton vowed
there will not be a repeat of Sunday’s fiasco.

“Everybody takes it personally,” he said. “There’s a reason we’re here. There’s a reason (NASCAR President) Mike Helton is who Mike Helton is and (Sprint Cup Director) John Darby and myself and all the series' Directors. I think next year will be my 30th year in the Cup garage, and, you know, I love this sport and we all love this sport and we take it personal.”

After Sunday’s race, Pemberton and the rest of the NASCAR team did take it personally.

“It hurts us when we’ve had a weekend like we’ve had,” Pemberton said. “There’s nothing worse than coming away from a race and knowing, knowing that the result was … it wasn’t even close. It wasn’t even in the 25th percentile of what we’re capable of doing and what we do week in and week out. So I don’t feel real good about it right now and I think if you had talked to anybody that’s been around me the past 48 hours, they’ll probably back me up on that. It’s difficult, it’s hard and we do beat ourselves up. … When we see things we know we can fix, we fix them. And that’s what we’re going to set out to do. We’re going to put this behind us and when we go back to Indianapolis next year, we’re probably going to have the best Brickyard race we’ve ever had.”

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

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