Pemberton understands drivers' complaints about tires
By SceneDaily Staff
Friday, March 14, 2008
BRISTOL, Tenn. – Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, understands what teams were asking for in terms of a tire change following last weekend’s race at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
Following Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race, several complained about the hard tire Goodyear officials brought to the track. Pemberton said that the harder tire was chosen to prevent any tire problems such as the track had experienced, but that he agrees there is probably a middle ground when it comes to balancing the safer tires with one that drivers are more accustomed to.
“When you look at, it’s safe to say, and everyone has said, ‘OK, the tire was ultraconservative,’ and there are some that complained more than others, and there are some that didn’t complain but maybe had the same feelings,” Pemberton said Friday morning at Bristol Motor Speedway, site of this Sunday's Food City 500. “With the recent history at Atlanta, with tires wearing out and issues there, the most important thing was to go back there and not have a tire issue from a safety standpoint, and that wound up being what happened. That was the goal, and that’s what they achieved. Once you got in competition, the drivers didn’t like the lack of grip, and so Goodyear realizes that, and they’re going to go back, and they’ll test for a different tire combination there.”
Pemberton said safety concerns are the leading consideration when choosing a tire for a track, “bar none.”
Still, he sees the point made by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who said after last week’s race that he felt there was a tire somewhere between one that had issues with cords showing and one that was so hard that drivers couldn’t race with it.
“There’s a balance in there somewhere, and it also goes back to, you hear a lot of talk about testing, this, that and the other,” he said. “You’ve got to have the best drivers and teams you can test tires. You can’t have guys that don’t stand on the gas test tires, you can’t have retired guys test tires, because they’re not going to get the most out of it. People who haven’t been tire testing or haven’t raced for a living can oversimplify that and say, 'Just go get a test team and a guy who’s off a different series and test.'
“There’s a reason they’re not in this level. You need guys at this level that know what they need and even guys at this Cup level that aren’t at the top of their game or the top of the heap, they can’t always give you the right tire, and I think having a guy at the Darlington test like Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle, I think you’re going to get the best test out of your tire that you can.”
Clearly, Tony Stewart offered the most comprehensive comments after last week’s race, questioning both the tire manufacturer and the process for selecting those tires.
Pemberton said he didn’t care to get into Tony Stewart’s comments about the tire manufacturer following last weekend’s race at Atlanta, but he didn’t question Goodyear’s tire testing process. NASCAR is comfortable with having two teams participate in each test session, such as happened at Darlington with Gordon and Biffle. Newman was also on hand for that session, but officials say he was testing load limits on the car at the track and not various tires as Gordon and Biffle were.
As for the Atlanta test, Pemberton said that sometimes it’s difficult to find teams to participate in a tire test. Last year, Atlanta hosted a full-field test with the tire and car of tomorrow in October and then came back for a limited test with a couple of drivers in December.
“I think even Tony said this, when they were going back to do their additional test at Atlanta, not everybody’s available at that time of year, which puts us in a box, and there’s probably some teams that were asked to test that wouldn’t test,” Pemberton said. “That’s just this one particular situation. If people would have got out of the cars, many of them did, and say, ‘God, that was tough, hopefully they’ll do a different tire; it was hard to drive, it was difficult’ and then go to Goodyear and explain it to them.”
Still, Pemberton said that NASCAR wasn’t questioning Stewart’s method of making his comments, pointing out that drivers are free to publicly question what they want. Stewart and others have maintained that the private conversations have been held for years and that they felt somewhat forced to make it a more public issue.
