Submitted by NASCAR Ranting and Raving Blog
After yesterday’s race you heard a lot of people complaining about the crummy tire, and how they couldn’t race side by side, and so on. One of the most outspoken of the group was Tony Stewart;
“That was the most pathetic racing tire that I’ve ever been on in my professional career,” Stewart said. “… Goodyear can’t build a tire that is worth a crap. If I were Goodyear, I would be really embarrassed about this weekend and what they brought here.”
Dale Jr later added;
“I don’t think, for one, the race was all that exciting. We couldn’t run side-by-side, or we’d wreck. We had to let each other go by. Every time you got beside a guy, you were just like, ‘Take it.’ I couldn’t go into the corner side-by-side but nobody else could, either.”
Jeff Gordon also threw in his two cents worth;
“I felt like I was going to crash every single lap,” Gordon said. “I’m exhausted right now. I feel like I’ve run a thousand miles here. That was the hardest day I have ever had at Atlanta, especially for a top-five finish. This car, this tire, at this track was just terrible.”
But the most unique, and perhaps the most insightful quote came from Chad Knaus, crew chief for Jimmie Johnson;
“You know, I think that’s where everybody’s wrong. It’s not the tire, it’s the car,” Knaus said. “It’s just the car. The car asks too much out of the tire. There’s only five things that hold the car on the racetrack: That’s the four tires and the downforce.
“The car has no downforce and Goodyear has to build an extremely hard tire just to make the tire live because there’s no downforce on the car. That makes everybody bad-mouth Goodyear and it’s just not fair to them, because Goodyear actually does a very good job.”
Hmmm ….
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