Homestead was the first track where the new combination was used in competition. "With this being a new surface, the compound will be a little harder [than the 2004 tires], but it is a fresh track with no rubber on it," Holmer explained late in 2003. "There was no sense staying with the old system when we were moving to the new system [in 2004] and this was a 'new' track."
Alan Howard uses a torch to...
Alan Howard uses a torch to burn off excess rubber to check tire wear on one of Greg Biffle's Cup tires at Homestead in 2003.
Starting with the softer, more compliant construction, the '04 tires will have some definite characteristics that the Cup drivers have not seen in their tires in a few years. Campbell explains, "It [the new construction] gives a driver a very progressive, very easy to drive kind of feel, not a knife-edge situation where you're constantly jumping back and forth between loose and tight." In this situation, the tire's grip will gradually drop off and put more emphasis on a driver's ability to adapt to a changing car.
Goodyear has worked very hard developing racing tires that add to both the competitiveness and safety of the sport of NASCAR racing. As Goodyear continues to improve its tires and provide more information to the race teams, the quality of the racing on the track improves as well.
Part 2: A Less Than Stellar Debut
It wasn't a good way for Goodyear to end the season. On the last lap of the final race of 2003, Bill Elliott's Dodge blew a right-rear tire at the repaved and reconfigured Homestead Speedway. It cost him a runaway win and left him with a car in flames. It was frustrating for Elliott and an embarrassment for Goodyear, which used the Homestead race as the launch pad for its newest generation of racing slick.
Goodyear spent a year developing and testing the new tire, only to have it fail over and over again on race day. That left NASCAR's exclusive tire supplier less than 90 days to figure out what went wrong and fix it before the Nextel Cup season opened at Daytona.
Greg Stucker, director of sales and marketing for Goodyear, says the company "is committed to do whatever it takes . . . I'm confident that at the start of the Daytona 500, we'll be ready." Why a new tire? Because NASCAR is changing the aerodynamic rules beginning this year, and the tires are part of the package to improve competition.
New Spoilers
Beginning at Daytona, NASCAR will require teams to trim three-quarters of an inch off the rear spoiler height of the Nextel Cup cars. The reduction is expected to generate between 75 and 100 pounds less rear downforce, depending on the speeds and track.
As cars go faster, engineers get smarter and wind tunnel time becomes a reliable predictor of how a car will do on race day. Drivers and fans have begun to complain that at times there isn't much racing on the racetrack. It's hard for drivers to pass other cars, and if a driver falls out of line on a big track, he quickly moves to the rear of the pack. NASCAR Cup racing is fast but . . . well, sometimes kind of dull.
NASCAR hopes the new spoilers will make the cars less dependent on aerodynamics and allow cars to run nose to tail without the on-track intimacy loosening up the leading car. It also wants to reduce some of the aero push on the second car, created when the rear spoiler on the lead car robs the second one of air needed to create pressure on its nose.
To compensate for the lost downforce, NASCAR asked Goodyear to come up with a new tire that would give the cars more mechanical grip, the "stiction" that a race slick creates when it grips the racing surface. The new tire differs from the old in two ways: The sidewalls are more compliant and the tread is softer. "The softer sidewall construction should make the tire more forgiving," explains Stucker. "For the driver, there should be a more positive feel back to the steering wheel."