Goodyear plans more tests at Indianapolis, Atlanta
Goodyear officials plan to test tires at Indianapolis Motor Speedway once more after problems in the race there last season. // Mark Sluder, NASCAR Scene
CONCORD, N.C. – Goodyear is planning additional tests this year at the two tracks where its tires encountered the most criticism last year, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Tests are planned for April and June at Indy, the site of one of the most frustrating events in recent NASCAR and Goodyear history last year, when NASCAR had to throw the caution every 12 or 13 laps because the tires wouldn’t last.
Four teams will go to the test April 20-21 and then 12 to 15 teams will go in mid-June, Goodyear director of race tire sales Greg Stucker said Wednesday during a test at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Goodyear already has had two tests at IMS since the race last year, which was the first for NASCAR’s new model Sprint Cup car on the 2.5-mile oval.
“We feel like we’ve got a real good handle on the range of the compounds that are necessary to give us a tread wear on this car at that race track,” Stucker said. “When we go back here in April, we’re going to build off that compound work we did in the fall and look at some construction changes.
“Some of the changes we made for Las Vegas [this year], we’re going to integrate into the Indy design as well and try to look at that.”
Goodyear also plans to test again at Atlanta after not being satisfied with the performance there earlier this month.
At Atlanta, drivers complained a year ago that they could not get enough grip and that their cars were sliding too much. Goodyear has made progress in the last year, but drivers still have complained.
“We think we’ll go back and test,” Stucker said. “I don’t think we dramatically impacted performance one way or the other, to be honest with you. We were hoping to have more of an impact than what we did.
“Not to say that it’s better or worse, but we’d like to think we can go back and try to help it a little bit more. Our plans are to go back sometime in early summer and get ready for Labor Day. We haven’t raced there that time of year, so we need to be there closer to what race conditions are going to be like because it’s only going to be worse [for grip in the heat].”
As far as other tracks, Stucker said the tire for the upcoming race at Martinsville will feature softer right-side tires for more grip.
Goodyear is also set with its tire choice for upcoming events at Dover, Pocono, Michigan and Infineon. It has tests planned for New Hampshire and Chicagoland coming up. It also will conduct a test at Iowa Speedway with Camping World Truck Series teams as the Trucks and Nationwide series debut at the track later this year.
There are no tests yet planned for a bigger tire, which would be 17 inches in diameter instead of 15 inches. Stucker said Goodyear officials met with NASCAR on Tuesday about the bigger tire.
“We feel like we’ve still got some work to do,” Stucker said. “We’re seeing some performance advantages [as far as durability], which was one of the goals. There’s a few things we’re not comfortable with yet as far as the overall footprint shape, the way the tire interacts [with the road surface]. We think we have some things to improve before we put it on the race track.
“There is an outside chance we could get on the race track [to test] by the end of this year, but I would say it’s probably a little more long-term than that.”
