82 replies to this topic

[Fat Boy]

Hey, I don't know why this hasn't been mentioned.

Can anyone believe how bad the Goodyear's were at Indy last weekend. It's just amazing to be how _bad_ the tires were. Some cars were taking them to cords in 3 laps.

I understand these big taxi cabs are hard on tires, but come on! How can Goodyear possibly be that far off base when it comes to tire construction? It's not like Michelin, who were in competition and built a tire that was just a little too 'hot'. This is a one make series. The only thing they have to do is make something that works reasonable with a middle of the road car and stays in one piece. They just don't seem up to the task.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy
The only thing they have to do is make something that works reasonable with a middle of the road car and stays in one piece.

That's not really it. They aren't really allowed to build a safe, middle 'o the road tire. The tire must also be racy.

The cars aren't really middle-of-road either. The setups are ridiculous. The latest wrinkle is several degrees of rear axle skew. The cars go sideways down the straights.

[Ross Stonefeld]

http://www.autosport...8dv24indy3274-2


http://www.autosport...l_08indtb1294-2



http://www.autosport...l_08imsbc2588-2


http://www.autosport...l_08imsbc2592-2

[desmo]

Originally posted by McGuire


That's not really it. They aren't really allowed to build a safe, middle 'o the road tire. The tire must also be racy.

I don't really understand this as it's a one make series. The tire must be racy or else what happens? As long as everyone gets the same rubber and it's safe, it seems fair to all.

It's always looked to me that having a single tire supplier for a series made for consistently better racing. Moreso even perhaps than a single chassis or engine/powertrain supplier.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by desmo


The tire must be racy or else what happens?

Or else Tony Stewart will go on his weekly Sirius radio show and call your tires junk and MF you to the world.

For Atlanta this spring, Goodyear furnished a nice, hard tire. Very safe, consistent tire with plenty of margin, but they got ripped to shreds in the press for it. Personally, I LIKED the racing on that tire. Looked like NASCAR in the old days. But it wasn't two-wide, door-handle to door-handle TV racing, so Goodyear got thrown under the bus. This was sort of a pivotal moment, as up to then Goodyear had been allowed to err on the side of caution in its tire selections.

[Fat Boy]

Originally posted by McGuire


That's not really it. They aren't really allowed to build a safe, middle 'o the road tire. The tire must also be racy.

The cars aren't really middle-of-road either. The setups are ridiculous. The latest wrinkle is several degrees of rear axle skew. The cars go sideways down the straights.

Let me elaborate. By 'middle of the road' I mean middle of whatever road they happen to be on. If that means cambers here and there or crazy toes (axle skew), then it is what it is. Make a tire that lives with moderate amount of all of it.

Tony Stewart mainly complained about blowing tires. That was when he said he was going to take GY tires off of all his vehicles. You notice how many 'cut-down' tires there have been this year? They aren't cut by debris or rubbing fenders. They just aren't holding together, period. The whole 'cut down' thing the announcers blab on about is to save face for GY.

Yes, a lot of drivers have complained about tires that are too hard and have poor grip. Jeff Gordon was one of the big criticizers of the grip level. Mac, like you, I'm not really too concerned if the compounds are hard. The cream rises either way. It does make for a more processional race, though.

In my experience with Goodyear, they throw compound after compound at the track when testing. They make upteen different very small changes in the oils or carbon to try to get where they need to be. Bridgestone and Michelin don't have nearly as many tire compounds. They change the carcass. If they need to get a little heat into or out of the tire, they vary tread gauge. Goodyear seems like they're caught in a 30 year time warp and thing that they can compound their way out of a problem. They seem to have a very limited knowledge of tire construction, and further, they don't seem to acknowledge that tire construction is a very big deal.

The criticism that Tony Stewart had of Goodyear was 100% on the money, IMO. He's right, they got out-gunned in American Open Wheel and Formula 1. They've been outgunned in every endurance series on the planet. They aren't on many sprinters or late models any more. They do seem to still be popular in drag racing, but maybe only because a strong competitor hasn't come in. I just find it a little interesting that their only racing presence is in one make series, and they can't get that right. I think it speaks volumes about where they're going as a company.

[McGuire]

Tony wasn't complaining about tires blowing at Atlanta. No tires blew. It was a safe, conservative tire. He complained that the tire wasn't grippy enough for him.

That's just the thing. Goodyear can't win.

Nor can they build a tire to a median setup. How these cars work is guy with the most camber gain wins, and if he uses up RF tires Goodyear takes the heat for it.

[DOHC]

Originally posted by McGuire
Or else Tony Stewart will go on his weekly Sirius radio show

You sure that ain't s'posed to be Patrick Stewart going on his weekly Star Trek show?

[zac510]

What kind of pressures are they running in these tyres?

Only the F1/2005 tyre problem at Indy makes me think of this question, although I have read about the crabbing they have been playing with lately. That must lead to horrible wear.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy


Tony Stewart mainly complained about blowing tires. That was when he said he was going to take GY tires off of all his vehicles. You notice how many 'cut-down' tires there have been this year? They aren't cut by debris or rubbing fenders. They just aren't holding together, period. The whole 'cut down' thing the announcers blab on about is to save face for GY.

It's not what happened at Indy, but most of the tire failures have been due to running excessive camber, underinflation and dogtrack setups. They are also running the front in coilbind so the car slides laterally a foot or two. At 190 mph. (How do you spec a tire for that??) They are just flat abusing the tires. The teams are essentially at war with their tires because this stuff makes the CoT faster. Goodyear has to build a tire that can both take this abuse and put on a TV show and it borders on the can't do-able.

Especially at a track like Indy, which is Talladega on the straights and Martinsville in the corners. And for stock cars it's a one-groove racetrack, but NASCAR demands a tire that will race two wide. Remember, these are not Atlantic cars we are talking about. These cars weigh 3400 lbs and run on a 11x27 tire on a 9.5x15 wheel. (L vs. R can vary but F vs. R must be identical.) Goodyear has a small window to work in as it is. A tire company would have to be crazy to take on a deal like this. It's all downside, no upside.

I wish you would look into things a little bit before you throw Goodyear under the bus. The guys working there are people like everyone else and it seems kind of arrogant to just throw down a blanket slander when you don't have your basic facts straight and have done zero homework on the issue. Doesn't seem square.

[Fat Boy]

Originally posted by McGuire

I wish you would look into things a little bit before you throw Goodyear under the bus. The guys working there are people like everyone else and it seems kind of arrogant to just throw down a blanket slander when you don't have your basic facts straight and have done zero homework on the issue. Doesn't seem square.

A little touchy on the GY thing, huh? I've done a fair bit of work with Goodyear. I'm not trying to slander them, I'm just calling it as I see it. We might have different points of view, but that doesn't mean that mine is not valid. I didn't catch Tony talking about Atlanta. I did catch him talking about whatever other track it was earlier in the year when a blow-out took him out of contention.

I've ran Goodyear race tires on a big endurance car, a couple Prototype endurance cars, and open wheelers from Formula Mazda to CART. I think I have a little bit of an idea of their product. The difference between what they put out and what Bridgestone or Michelin puts out is staggering.

Case in point, the Pratt and Miller Corvettes. They won exactly 1 race prior to switching to Michelin. That race was at Texas World where is was super hot. GY had a rubber compound that was rock hard. It just so happened that with 150 degree F track temps and that big old car, that rubber worked. Michelin didn't bring a strong enough tire to the country, much less the track. In general terms, though, they just couldn't compete until they switched. When they did switch, they picked up approximately 1 second per mile of racetrack in lap time. What other change can you make to a car that is that pronounced?

-------------------------------
Side note, axle skew itself isn't a big contributor to tire wear. The collective toe that they have build into the rear of the car is much more important. You could have 20 degrees of axle skew in the car and have zero net toe. Now, by having the rear end of the car stuck out in the wind the aero side forces are going to put a constant side force/slip angle in the tire which will cause wear.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy


A little touchy on the GY thing, huh? I've done a fair bit of work with Goodyear. I'm not trying to slander them, I'm just calling it as I see it. We might have different points of view, but that doesn't mean that mine is not valid. I didn't catch Tony talking about Atlanta. I did catch him talking about whatever other track it was earlier in the year when a blow-out took him out of contention.

Tony's deal where he said he was going to take all the GYs off his personal vehicles was AT ATLANTA. There were no blown tires there, not one. Goodyear brought the bulletproof, idiot-proof tire and Tony got sore because it wasn't racy. (And also because the 20 missed the setup by a mile.)

This was important because unlike Tony, the Goodyear engineers don't have their own national radio shows where they can MF on him two hours per week. Now after that whole dustup, GY can no longer hang to the hard side in tire selection. They have to hit it dead center and it is a very narrow window. This ain't road racing where with all due respect, anything halfway close will halfway work. This is 3400 lb cars going 200 mph, between walls.

So after Atlanta, you could see all this coming a mile away. I predicted this would happen but GY fooled me. I thought the soft tire would come at Texas, but they managed to hit it every week until Indy. It's not really a technical problem. It's a political problem.

What do I mean? Hoosier supplies the tires for ARCA and they come in all of three flavors: short track, intermediate, and superspeedway, for all the tracks that ARCA runs. How do they do that? Lower expectations. Four Hoosier speedway tires would easily go 40 laps at the Brickyard. And the racing would suck, one groove single file. Goodyear does not have that luxury.

[Fat Boy]

Originally posted by McGuire
Nor can they build a tire to a median setup. How these cars work is guy with the most camber gain wins, and if he uses up RF tires Goodyear takes the heat for it.

I was thinking about this, and it makes my point. If the 'guy with the most camber gain wins', then that is something that Goodyear can control with the build of the carcass. Tire construction is incredibly powerful with respect to car handling, in my opinion, more than any other suspension component. Goodyear is producing a tire that you say needs a lot of camber gain to be fast. Well, if that's what is causing blown tires, then produce a construction that works better with less camber gain. It's a chicken-egg situation. The teams wouldn't go into weird setup areas (like massive camber gains) if it weren't faster. Goodyear is the one that holds those keys.

Some of these guys have to make the field on time. When you're in the situation of having to put a setup on the car specifically for qualifying to race, and then forced to race that setup without any changes, that's what you do. Some of the cars have stopped for several laps even before the first caution to make major setup changes, and they go several laps down. I know one guy in this situation that was going to wait until the first caution to not go so many laps down. He was the first caution when his RF let go. Was he on a setup that he knew was hard on tires? Yes. Could he have raced if he didn't have the qualy setup on the car? No, he would have been sent home.

You're back's against the wall, what do you do? It's not an easy call.

[Fat Boy]

Originally posted by McGuire


Tony's deal where he said he was going to take all the GYs off his personal vehicles was AT ATLANTA. There were no blown tires there, not one. Goodyear brought the bulletproof, idiot-proof tire and Tony got sore because it wasn't racy. (And also because the 20 missed the setup by a mile.)

This was important because unlike Tony, the Goodyear engineers don't have their own national radio shows where they can MF on him two hours per week. Now after that whole dustup, GY can no longer hang to the hard side in tire selection. They have to hit it dead center and it is a very narrow window. This ain't road racing where with all due respect, anything halfway close will halfway work. This is 3400 lb cars going 200 mph, between walls.

You're right. It was Atlanta. Vegas was where Tony was contending for the win, blew a tire, and hit the wall. Tony wasn't the only one complaining. Here are other quotes from a couple of well-knowns that say Tony over-reacted:

But several drivers said the tire compound chosen was not a good match for NASCAR's new car and the Atlanta track.

"I felt I was going to crash on every single lap," Jeff Gordon said after finishing fifth. "This car, this tire, at this track was just terrible."

Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Goodyear does a "good job" overall but brought the wrong tire to Atlanta.

"The tire we used to run would run into the cords, but you could still run hard on it," he said. "This tire, I'm still seeing the mold line in my tire after 30 laps. There's got to be several combinations in between that."


Now, Mac, you seem to want to attack me personally on this deal. I'm not sure why. Ya, the window is a hell of a lot wider on setup for a road course, especially in terms of tire wear. I've been on plenty of ovals and had good and bad cars on them. My cars have had oval track records and I've blistered the hell out of my tires and the guy had to hold on just to make it to the end. I understand it's not an easy game.

Having said that, Goodyear seems like a rudderless ship in the racing department. They're a damn sight from the top of their game. They apparently don't understand what it takes to make a tire that has a reasonable combination of grip and longevity because any time they compete with another manufacturer, they lose. You can get angry and call me (and Tony Stewart, for that fact) slanderous, but that doesn't make last weeks race any better. That's a major, major screw up. Don't tell me they got a handle on things, because it's pretty apparent that there's a boatload of proof in the other direction. NASCAR has shut Tony up to some extent, but that doesn't mean what he said was without substance.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy



Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Goodyear does a "good job" overall but brought the wrong tire to Atlanta.

"The tire we used to run would run into the cords, but you could still run hard on it," he said. "This tire, I'm still seeing the mold line in my tire after 30 laps. There's got to be several combinations in between that."

[/B]

Now FB, if you actually read that quote you know Junebug is being exaggerating a mite. There is no way you can run 30 laps on a 1.5 mile oval track at 175 mph and still read the mold lines on the tread. A steel tire would not do that. Here is what Biffle said about the Atlanta tire, from espn.com:

Biffle said the drivers and teams have to assume some responsibility, reminding they've complained in the past about softer compounds that were made vulnerable by teams that pushed the limits with camber and tire pressure. "They have made it not childproof but dummy-proof, if you will," Biffle said of the new tire. "We can't hurt that tire anymore. We can put all the camber in it we want and drive however we want to drive and nothing happens."

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy



You can get angry and call me (and Tony Stewart, for that fact) slanderous, but that doesn't make last weeks race any better. That's a major, major screw up. Don't tell me they got a handle on things, because it's pretty apparent that there's a boatload of proof in the other direction. NASCAR has shut Tony up to some extent, but that doesn't mean what he said was without substance.

Let's talk about substance. You have a good view from the paddock. Now let me give you the view from the front office. When Tony tells his fans he is going to remove the Goodyear tires (free no doubt) from all his personal vehicles, he has just removed any reason for the company to be in the NASCAR race tire business. No matter how much positive impact GY can derive from its race program in 2008, it will be more than offset by Tony's single negative endorsement. That's how marketing works.

[McGuire]

By the way, that tire in the photo above is a right rear.

[McGuire]

When all is said and done, as usual it is not about companies or people, it's about process. The deal at Indy could have been easily averted by running an open test at Indy. This was the first race there for the CoT. Goodyear was going in blind.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by zac510
What kind of pressures are they running in these tyres?

Only the F1/2005 tyre problem at Indy makes me think of this question, although I have read about the crabbing they have been playing with lately. That must lead to horrible wear.

Here is the tire card for Indy:

Tire: Goodyear Eagle Speedway Radials
Number of Tires:Left-side -- 1,575; Right-side -- 1,575
Tire Codes: Left-side -- D-4170; Right-side -- D-4172
Tire Circumference: Left-side -- 87.3 in.; Right-side -- 88.6 in.

Technical Inspection Inflation:
Left Front -- 26 psi; Left Rear -- 26 psi;
Right Front -- 36 psi; Right Rear -- 36 psi

Minimum Recommended Inflation:
Left Front -- 16 psi; Left Rear -- 16 psi;
Right Front -- 37 psi; Right Rear -- 33 psi


Of course, at most tracks these specs don't mean a whole lot. The crew chief says pfft and throws that away. In reality they will run as little pressure as they can get away with and still allow the tire to hold together until the next anticipated pit stop.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy


I was thinking about this, and it makes my point. If the 'guy with the most camber gain wins', then that is something that Goodyear can control with the build of the carcass. Tire construction is incredibly powerful with respect to car handling, in my opinion, more than any other suspension component. Goodyear is producing a tire that you say needs a lot of camber gain to be fast.

Sigh. It's not that this tire "likes" camber gain. This will be true of any tire. You can build camber bias into a tire via assymetrical construction, but you can't take it out beyond neutral. We have the laws of physics to deal with. Camber torque/camber thrust = cornering force. (You could build a crooked tire I suppose, and just produce the same problem inside out.)

These teams all have essentially identical cars, an extremely short list of things they can do to go faster than the other guy, and they are working in hundredths of a second. Two of them are camber/camber gain and inflation. So they will push the envelope as far as they can, trading lap times for tire life. And if they get it wrong and push too far, they can just go on TV and MF on the tire supplier. How far will they go? At Indy last week, they were actually taking two tires to gain track position. It is sort of breathtaking to watch.

[imaginesix]

Originally posted by McGuire
It's not what happened at Indy, but most of the tire failures have been due to running excessive camber, underinflation and dogtrack setups.

Denial.

I wish you would look into things a little bit before you throw Goodyear under the bus. The guys working there are people like everyone else and it seems kind of arrogant to just throw down a blanket slander when you don't have your basic facts straight and have done zero homework on the issue. Doesn't seem square.

Anger.

Now FB, if you actually read that quote you know Junebug is being exaggerating a mite.

Bargaining.

Sigh.

Depression.


...acceptance?

[McGuire]

Originally posted by imaginesix
Denial.

Anger.

Bargaining.

Depression.


...acceptance?

I'm here to talk tires. Decide why you are here and then get to it.

[imaginesix]

I'm here to help you heal.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by imaginesix
I'm here to help you heal.

Do we need a peanut gallery for this issue?

[sblick]

I thought last year they had to run minimum pressures decided by Goodyear? To hard to police? With all the rules NASCAR has they could set up minimum static camber also. The teams aren't allowed to run dogtrack set ups like they did earlier in the year so they got rid of one problem IIRC. Goodyear, it seems, wants to run a bigger tire with a different profile for the present car.
My two cents, after two "competition yellows" they should have let them race. If a driver is foolish enough to overdrive the tires then so be it. Like any other race. The crew chiefs by that time knew how long they would last.

[imaginesix]

Don't try and make this about us McG, we've all come to accept that GY sucks.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by imaginesix
Don't try and make this about us McG, we've all come to accept that GY sucks.

Go back and read your own posts. Instead of talking about tires -- you never came close -- you were making an efort to ridicule me. In other words you were being a jerk, you jerk. A useless, annoying jerk. Do not make me come over there.

If the extent of your knowledge of tires is that some may "suck," you probably have nothing to contribute to this discussion. In that case please have the good sense and good taste to shut the hell up and go away lest you embarrass yourself any further.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by sblick
I thought last year they had to run minimum pressures decided by Goodyear? To hard to police? With all the rules NASCAR has they could set up minimum static camber also. The teams aren't allowed to run dogtrack set ups like they did earlier in the year so they got rid of one problem IIRC. Goodyear, it seems, wants to run a bigger tire with a different profile for the present car.

The "recommended" tire pressures are impossible to police. They would need an official with a pressure gauge checking every tire at every pit stop.

There is a static camber rule. The teams get it all back and then some by running extreme camber gain in bump. It's a never-ending game of whack-a-mole.

NASCAR has min/max rules for many of the chassis settings. (For example, the cars still dogtrack but not as much as before Charlote.) NASCAR only takes half measures when setting these specs, on purpose. The problem is the CoT is not a very racy car right now and NASCAR does not want to take away adjutments that will make the thing work. So these adjustment limits are all compromises between what the teams need and what Goodyear needs to present a safe tire.

[Fat Boy]

The biggest thing that we, as teams can do to control tire load carrying ability is to stick pressure in it. Sometimes a couple psi will take a tire that shreds itself and turn it into a tire that runs a stint no problem. Does it affect laptime? Ya, it does. Running lower pressures is almost always better for tire grip. I don't know where Cup car crew chiefs run their pressures, but I've seen cars running around under yellow with stickers on that do the whole wrinkle wall thing. That's pretty stinkin' low.

I think there would have been a lot of wisdom in throwing the competition yellow twice to let the teams know where they stood in terms of tire wear and then just let them race. As it was, Johnson's crew put a qualifying setup on the car that was guaranteed to tear up the tires, but he knew he was only going to have to run 10 laps at a time. In that respect, the tire wear showed a lot worse than it actually was. They had to go for 4 tires on every stop. 'Dinger's crew had more of a race setup on their car and was able to go to 2 tires every other stop and get some track position. Left side tires just weren't seeing the same amount of wear as on Johnson's car....of course, he wasn't as fast, either.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

In terms of camber sensitivity, be it static or dynamic, the effectiveness of adding camber can be tuned by the construction. In the past I've stated that I've always found Goodyear's to have a very square shoulder and they tend to be very camber sensitive. I'm not a tire construction wizard. I don't know what it is about their philosophy that produces this, it's just an observation. Anyway, it gives you a smaller window to work in because adding (negative) camber has a significant effect on the side force the tire can produce, but since they tend to give you a more square profile, you tend to run on the edge of the tire. It's really easy to get into inside wear issues, especially if you have an imbalance.

Other manufacturer's tires generally do not exhibit the same tendencies. The side force you gain by adding camber helps to a point, but then it starts pulling enough contact patch off the ground that there is an early point of diminishing returns. You don't go for the big camber numbers because it doesn't make the car faster. Can you still get yourself in trouble with other adjustements? Absolutely. The window is just a hell of a lot wider.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Were all driver's stretching things when talking about the Atlanta tire? Yep. Tony, Jeff, Dale Jr., and Biffle were all stretching what they said. That doesn't mean Goodyear did a good job. They produced a tire that was very difficult to drive, but had good longevity. Jr.'s comment of 'there has to be several steps in the middle' is very common when you're dealing with a tire company that is all about compounding. You end up with one tire that's chewing gum and the next step is Rc60. Chemically, they're probably very close to each other. The quality control that it takes to hit those middle steps is very tight. Tuning the middle characteristics with construction, rather than compound, is the way that the better companies do it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Goodyear is in NASCAR to sell passenger car tires. They get a massive amount of exposure from it. It's a tough position to be in because it is a very difficult tire to build and when they do a good job, no one says 'boo' When they do a bad job, everyone makes a fuss. Well, last time I checked, they didn't have a gun to their head when they signed the contract. The marketing end of the deal is a piece o' cake, but they've got to get the engineering sorted, or it'll sink the whole deal. Their race tire engineering has been weak for many years. In 1994, Hoosier, a dinky company by comparison, was able to compete with them head to head and by 2004 they were pretty much out of every competitive series in the world. That's a huge statement on the ability of Goodyear to produce a race tire. Especially when Page and his boys (and girls) across town can do a solid job in any series they happen to compete in.

[imaginesix]

Originally posted by McGuire
Go back and read your own posts. Instead of talking about tires -- you never came close -- you were making an efort to ridicule me. In other words you were being a jerk, you jerk. A useless, annoying jerk. Do not make me come over there.

I never would have tried to make my point in such a humourous way if I had known that you're so insecure. My point is that GY haven't made a great tire for over a decade, either in motorsports or in retail. Michelin are the standard bearer in both sectors and it's enthusiasm for cars, motorsports and technology can be seen in every way the company showcases itself. GY do nothing to advance the state of the art or to invest themselves in the public sphere and unsurprisingly the best they can do with their products is just struggle to keep up with the competition.

If the extent of your knowledge of tires is that some may "suck," you probably have nothing to contribute to this discussion. In that case please have the good sense and good taste to shut the hell up and go away lest you embarrass yourself any further.

This was never meant to get personal but since you went there then let's go.

I am sure you will have all sorts of insider knowledge, what Billy said to Tommy in the boardroom, and what Jimmy the lead engineer has accomplished, and how the GY retailers are doing so much more than any other to please their customers yada yada yada... All of which will only serve to confuse you about the reality of the situation which is that GY have lost the plot versus the competition. You either can't see the forest from the trees or you're simply inventing things to make your argument, but you might do well to put your ego aside for a moment and try listening to those who have a broader perspective from your own. Or have you given up on learning anything new ever again?

[jdanton]

Ok, can we stop bickering for a second and discuss engineering again.

I posed this on the Racing Comments thread, and its mainly for my own edification. The CoT is clearly a pig, it was designed intentionally to be a pig, but NASCAR may have taken it too far. Since there is minimal downforce compared to the old car, and the teams are running more extreme setups--ignoring tire construction, would just putting more tread on the ground help the handling of the car, and in theory make the tire providers job easier?

The cars have forever been under-tired and underbraked, but with the higher CoG and the lack of downforce, the problem seems to have been exacerbated. Thoughts? (unrelated specifically to your opinion of NASCAR and/or the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.)

[canon1753]

A couple of questions:

1. Why did the track not "rubber in"?

2. (More of a history question) Goodyear tires were the tires to have in almost any kind of racing from 1980-1993. 10 years later they were spec tires for NASCAR and the NHRA. What happened? Did the funding just go away or did their old guard who kept the racing division well funded all retire?

3. Did they ever run the Pocono tires or did they just use the Indy tires?

Thanks!

[McGuire]

Originally posted by imaginesix
I never would have tried to make my point in such a humourous way if I had known that you're so insecure. My point is that GY haven't made a great tire for over a decade, either in motorsports or in retail. Michelin are the standard bearer in both sectors and it's enthusiasm for cars, motorsports and technology can be seen in every way the company showcases itself. GY do nothing to advance the state of the art or to invest themselves in the public sphere and unsurprisingly the best they can do with their products is just struggle to keep up with the competition.
[B]This was never meant to get personal but since you went there then let's go.

I am sure you will have all sorts of insider knowledge, what Billy said to Tommy in the boardroom, and what Jimmy the lead engineer has accomplished, and how the GY retailers are doing so much more than any other to please their customers yada yada yada... All of which will only serve to confuse you about the reality of the situation which is that GY have lost the plot versus the competition. You either can't see the forest from the trees or you're simply inventing things to make your argument, but you might do well to put your ego aside for a moment and try listening to those who have a broader perspective from your own. Or have you given up on learning anything new ever again?

You still haven't managed to say anything about tire engineering or this tire problem in particular. Try again.

[jdanton]

Originally posted by canon1753
A couple of questions:
3. Did they ever run the Pocono tires or did they just use the Indy tires?

Thanks!

No--they intentionally (unstated, but obvious) kept the yellow flag periods long, in order to manage with just the Indy tires.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by jdanton
Ok, can we stop bickering for a second and discuss engineering again.

I posed this on the Racing Comments thread, and its mainly for my own edification. The CoT is clearly a pig, it was designed intentionally to be a pig, but NASCAR may have taken it too far. Since there is minimal downforce compared to the old car, and the teams are running more extreme setups--ignoring tire construction, would just putting more tread on the ground help the handling of the car, and in theory make the tire providers job easier?

The cars have forever been under-tired and underbraked, but with the higher CoG and the lack of downforce, the problem seems to have been exacerbated. Thoughts? (unrelated specifically to your opinion of NASCAR and/or the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.)

Sure. Just as you say, these cars were under-tired before they adopted the CoT, and the CoT is worse. It has around 45 percent less downforce, a taller CG height and more right-side weight. Meanwhile, the cars still weigh 3400 lbs and the tires are still ~11 inches wide and 27-28 inches tall, on 9.5x15 wheels. So yeah, they could do Goodyear an enormous favor by going to a reasonably sized tire package. However, that is not in the cards.

IMO the entire Indy debacle could have been averted if an open test had been conducted prior to the race. The CoT had never run there before.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by canon1753
A couple of questions:


2. (More of a history question) Goodyear tires were the tires to have in almost any kind of racing from 1980-1993. 10 years later they were spec tires for NASCAR and the NHRA. What happened? Did the funding just go away or did their old guard who kept the racing division well funded all retire?

It is Goodyear's official corporate policy to participate only in single-supplier series whenever it can help it. How that became the policy is an interesting story, and is not really about on-track competition. It's business.

[jdanton]

I think the total weight on the car actually went up 50 lbs. which is a step in the wrong direction.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy


In 1994, Hoosier, a dinky company by comparison, was able to compete with them head to head and by 2004 they were pretty much out of every competitive series in the world. That's a huge statement on the ability of Goodyear to produce a race tire. Especially when Page and his boys (and girls) across town can do a solid job in any series they happen to compete in.

Hoosier was not able to compete with Goodyear in Cup -- they were good enough to look halfway respectable, but in fact they were blown out of the series. More recently, Hoosier had enough trouble building a decent Grand Am tire. But there is some degree of truth to what you are saying and since I have been around long enough to watch it unfold, I can tell you how it happened.

Just as canon1753 said, for decades Goodyear ruled motorsports in North America and parts of the world. They designed and built the tires for more series than we can count, and then backed up that investment with equal or more funding in marketing and promotion, matching and beating what the series spent themselves.. very often, Goodyear supplied the only national marketing these series ever got.

... only to see their investment in many series totally derailed by other tire companies, many of them ma & pa operations, who came in, copied Goodyear's tire, softened it enough to win and took over the sales for that series. Of course these tiremakers never matched Goodyear's marketing efforts; that's not why they were there. Some like Hoosier don't even sell consumer tires. But Goodyear's investment went down the tube all the same. Faced with that, Goodyear could go to tire-war with these companies or walk away, and they did plenty of both. And while many are going to disagree with me about this, but: at the end of the day, tire wars essentially boil down to which company is more willing to put the softer tire under its drivers. (See USGP 2005.) Not a very attractive form of competition. So, eventually the only way it made any sense for Goodyear to participate in racing was under sole supplier agreements. That is the only way to protect their comprehensive investments. Will that affect their ability to compete against other tire companies head to head? No doubt. That's not what they do.

But that does not mean Goodyear does not build a quality tire for the series it supports -- or that in many ways it isn't one of the best friends and supporters auto racing ever had. To be honest, I don't know why Goodyear is in NASCAR anymore. Like Busch, they have been there too long to accomplish anything marketing-wise. They are atmospheric in the NASCAR theater, and now NASCAR treats them like the furniture anyway. A tire company would have to be crazy to get mixed up in this current mess. And for any company that came in to replace Goodyear, the learning curve would be pretty steep and tough.

[Ben]

Originally posted by Fat Boy
The biggest thing that we, as teams can do to control tire load carrying ability is to stick pressure in it. Sometimes a couple psi will take a tire that shreds itself and turn it into a tire that runs a stint no problem. Does it affect laptime? Ya, it does. Running lower pressures is almost always better for tire grip. I don't know where Cup car crew chiefs run their pressures, but I've seen cars running around under yellow with stickers on that do the whole wrinkle wall thing. That's pretty stinkin' low.

I think there would have been a lot of wisdom in throwing the competition yellow twice to let the teams know where they stood in terms of tire wear and then just let them race. As it was, Johnson's crew put a qualifying setup on the car that was guaranteed to tear up the tires, but he knew he was only going to have to run 10 laps at a time. In that respect, the tire wear showed a lot worse than it actually was. They had to go for 4 tires on every stop. 'Dinger's crew had more of a race setup on their car and was able to go to 2 tires every other stop and get some track position. Left side tires just weren't seeing the same amount of wear as on Johnson's car....of course, he wasn't as fast, either.

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In terms of camber sensitivity, be it static or dynamic, the effectiveness of adding camber can be tuned by the construction. In the past I've stated that I've always found Goodyear's to have a very square shoulder and they tend to be very camber sensitive. I'm not a tire construction wizard. I don't know what it is about their philosophy that produces this, it's just an observation. Anyway, it gives you a smaller window to work in because adding (negative) camber has a significant effect on the side force the tire can produce, but since they tend to give you a more square profile, you tend to run on the edge of the tire. It's really easy to get into inside wear issues, especially if you have an imbalance.

Other manufacturer's tires generally do not exhibit the same tendencies. The side force you gain by adding camber helps to a point, but then it starts pulling enough contact patch off the ground that there is an early point of diminishing returns. You don't go for the big camber numbers because it doesn't make the car faster. Can you still get yourself in trouble with other adjustements? Absolutely. The window is just a hell of a lot wider.

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Were all driver's stretching things when talking about the Atlanta tire? Yep. Tony, Jeff, Dale Jr., and Biffle were all stretching what they said. That doesn't mean Goodyear did a good job. They produced a tire that was very difficult to drive, but had good longevity. Jr.'s comment of 'there has to be several steps in the middle' is very common when you're dealing with a tire company that is all about compounding. You end up with one tire that's chewing gum and the next step is Rc60. Chemically, they're probably very close to each other. The quality control that it takes to hit those middle steps is very tight. Tuning the middle characteristics with construction, rather than compound, is the way that the better companies do it.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Goodyear is in NASCAR to sell passenger car tires. They get a massive amount of exposure from it. It's a tough position to be in because it is a very difficult tire to build and when they do a good job, no one says 'boo' When they do a bad job, everyone makes a fuss. Well, last time I checked, they didn't have a gun to their head when they signed the contract. The marketing end of the deal is a piece o' cake, but they've got to get the engineering sorted, or it'll sink the whole deal. Their race tire engineering has been weak for many years. In 1994, Hoosier, a dinky company by comparison, was able to compete with them head to head and by 2004 they were pretty much out of every competitive series in the world. That's a huge statement on the ability of Goodyear to produce a race tire. Especially when Page and his boys (and girls) across town can do a solid job in any series they happen to compete in.

Given my position I have to be careful, but I'd have to say FB is closer to the truth than Mac. Doing tyres for cars which are heavy, and/or have high downforce is always tough - I've had tyres go after sustained safety car running at LM, but in a one brand situation - this type of thing is pretty unacceptable.

On the lower is always better pressure argument - not always. I had a test recently where we didn't alter the cold pressures in the morning when it was a lot cooler than the previous afternoon, and the driver was bitching about a lot of U/S, kept bitching about the U/S until the tyres reached a threshold pressure and suddenly switched on. You said constructions are important - well a big part of the construction stiffness is the air, so lower isn't always better if it takes you out of a stiffness window in which you need to be. That aside lower is better in terms of contact area, but even then pressure distribution comes into play - Michelin are hot in this area, no question.

The other point you make is about square shoulders. Now I read somewhere that the BF Goodrich Trans-Am tyre was very square but less camber sensitive than what had gone before. Michelin (and by extension Goodrich?) tend to run very soft upper sidewalls that can mitigate for a square profile. I'm developing an FSAE tyre at the moment that has the proverbial bag of wind construction and a relatively square profile (not by design it was the only mould available) but because of the construction it ain't that camber sensitive and it's very hard to generate a lot of spread and inside shoulder wear - this is good or bad depending on what you kinematics are doing - i.e. I have one happy team with good grip and another team with cold tyres and an attitude.

But to reiterate GY are in the S*** and FB's position is the most accurate here IMHO.

Ben

[desmo]

Originally posted by McGuire



... only to see their investment in many series totally derailed by other tire companies, many of them ma & pa operations, who came in, copied Goodyear's tire, softened it enough to win and took over the sales for that series.

This bit struck me as exceedingly odd- that a mom and pop outfit could copy presumably the best work of a major tire manufacturer, reformulate the compound a bit and beat them with it. If it's that easy to do why hasn't GY simply done the same whenever they've fallen behind the competitive curve? They surely possess the resources to do a much better job of it than some relatively tiny operation like Hoosier. Maybe all Goodyear need do is buy- even if surreptitiously- a set of Michelins or whatever, copy them, tweak the compound a bit and win.

Or alternatively, and this seems more likely, maybe copying and tweaking only works on seriously low-tech gear.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by desmo


This bit struck me as exceedingly odd- that a mom and pop outfit could copy presumably the best work of a major tire manufacturer, reformulate the compound a bit and beat them with it. If it's that easy to do why hasn't GY simply done the same whenever they've fallen behind the competitive curve? They surely possess the resources to do a much better job of it than some relatively tiny operation like Hoosier. Maybe all Goodyear need do is buy- even if surreptitiously- a set of Michelins or whatever, copy them, tweak the compound a bit and win.

Or alternatively, and this seems more likely, maybe copying and tweaking only works on seriously low-tech gear.

They were not besting Goodyear or anyone. They were simply copying Goodyear's tire and making it a little racier. It was all Goodyear's expertise they were piggybacking on. (Or Firestone's -- that's what drove them out back in '74. The remnants of that are still around. Ever hear of Phoenix drag slicks?) Goodyear can play that game too, and they certainly have. But as I said, when push comes to shove a tire war simply comes down to which tire maker is more willing to risk the drivers' necks. That is the essence of a tire war. See USGP 2005. "Winning" that war does not sell a single tire. It's all downside. There is no percentage for any consumer tiremaker in that game.

Getting back on topic, the question in this instance is: Does Goodyear have in NASCAR the proper environment to produce a safe, competition-friendly tire every week? IMO the answer is clearly no.

[McGuire]

Originally posted by Fat Boy



Some of these guys have to make the field on time. When you're in the situation of having to put a setup on the car specifically for qualifying to race, and then forced to race that setup without any changes, that's what you do. Some of the cars have stopped for several laps even before the first caution to make major setup changes, and they go several laps down. I know one guy in this situation that was going to wait until the first caution to not go so many laps down. He was the first caution when his RF let go. Was he on a setup that he knew was hard on tires? Yes. Could he have raced if he didn't have the qualy setup on the car? No, he would have been sent home.

You're back's against the wall, what do you do? It's not an easy call.

That's all fine, but when you use up the tires, you can't go to the media and badmouth Goodyear. You abused the tires, you know you abused them, so suck it up and try again next week. The tires are not to blame.

I agree that NASCAR should not allow that qualifying situation to exist; it's totally unfair and anti-competition. (My solution is qualify everyone on time, period, which is never going to happen.) But it is ridiculous to put the whole thing on Goodyear's back. The typical race setup is abusive enough of the tires, let alone a banzai qualifying setup.

[desmo]

Tires seem funny to me though. There's precious little out there in the open literature of a technical nature, especially considering how critical a component they are in any vehicle that uses them. The tech knowledge almost seems arcane and shrouded in mystery compared to say powertrains or suspensions (the mostly metal parts). Something as seemingly elementary as slip charts are hard to find. We're told they are nigh-impossible to model computationally and are half art and half science. Are they cutting edge industrial high tech or something ma and pa can whip up in the pole building with the right recipe and tools? Finely tuned and fabricated cutting edge instruments with sophisticated and subtle constructions and compounds, all painstakingly developed by teams of engineers and chemists? Or funny rubber semi-doughnuts whipped together in a mold from off the shelf fabrics and rubber compounds? Or somewhere between?

[desmo]

There was a French guy named Andre Dugast who for years constructed hand-made tires for racing bicycles that were sought after by pro riders. He was a one man operation and his tires had to outperform the best that relative behemoths like Michelin, Continental and Pirelli as well as large but less known outside of cycling brands like Clement, Hutchinson and Vittoria could produce. And by most reports they did- riders won majors and WCs on them even though he obviously couldn't sponsor them as others could.

The little operation was bought by one of the team pro mechanics when Andre retired a few years back and moved to Holland where production has increased tenfold- to around 400 tires a week. And they're still sought after.

[jdanton]

Dugasts will be on the wheels of almost all of the teams at the velodrome in Beijing. An if there are any Belgians around, no top cyclocrosser rides any thing but a Dugast.

But, he buys his treads from the big guys. And constructing bicycles tires isn't nearly as complex as racing tires.

[imaginesix]

Silk tires!

Could be that the tires don't get enough exposure to make it worthwhile for the big names, for the expense of such low-volume production. At the same time on the flip side of the coin, riders might perceive greater benefit from Dugast-branded tires than from any theoretical performance improvement in other tires given that a cyclist's performance isn't nearly so dependent on his tires as a race driver's performance is.

[desmo]

Originally posted by jdanton
And constructing bicycles tires isn't nearly as complex as racing tires.

That may be true. But tell that to a rider on an unsuspended vehicle racing down the switchbacks of the Col de la Bonnette with nothing but lycra and a small dirt berm between him and oblivion or a track racer slingshotting out of the final curve at a velodrome at maximum speed.

A racing bicycle tire doesn't spend much of its life at the tractive limit like a car racing tire but it has moments and those can still make the difference on the day.

[Greg Locock]

I've seen some good results from FEA models of tires. Trouble is they are at supercomputer levels of complexity.

I must admit the difficulty with finding even the basics about a name brand tire is rather annoying. For instance, why is the cornering compliance and the SAT curve such a big secret?

[Fat Boy]

Originally posted by McGuire


Hoosier was not able to compete with Goodyear in Cup -- they were good enough to look halfway respectable, but in fact they were blown out of the series. More recently, Hoosier had enough trouble building a decent Grand Am tire. But there is some degree of truth to what you are saying and since I have been around long enough to watch it unfold, I can tell you how it happened.



... only to see their investment in many series totally derailed by other tire companies, many of them ma & pa operations, who came in, copied Goodyear's tire, softened it enough to win and took over the sales for that series. Of course these tiremakers never matched Goodyear's marketing efforts; that's not why they were there. Some like Hoosier don't even sell consumer tires. But Goodyear's investment went down the tube all the same. Faced with that, Goodyear could go to tire-war with these companies or walk away, and they did plenty of both. And while many are going to disagree with me about this, but: at the end of the day, tire wars essentially boil down to which company is more willing to put the softer tire under its drivers. (See USGP 2005.) Not a very attractive form of competition. So, eventually the only way it made any sense for Goodyear to participate in racing was under sole supplier agreements. That is the only way to protect their comprehensive investments. Will that affect their ability to compete against other tire companies head to head? No doubt. That's not what they do.

But that does not mean Goodyear does not build a quality tire for the series it supports -- or that in many ways it isn't one of the best friends and supporters auto racing ever had. To be honest, I don't know why Goodyear is in NASCAR anymore. Like Busch, they have been there too long to accomplish anything marketing-wise. They are atmospheric in the NASCAR theater, and now NASCAR treats them like the furniture anyway. A tire company would have to be crazy to get mixed up in this current mess. And for any company that came in to replace Goodyear, the learning curve would be pretty steep and tough.

I was working with a Goodyear subsidiary as a pee-on in 1994. I got to do a couple Cup races including Indy. I can tell you that Goodyear was plenty concerned about Hoosier. I got to do the 'fly on the wall' thing when Leo was talking to his guys. He wasn't concerned about Hoosier building a soft compound, 300 degree tire that qualified on pole. He was worried about a 3-5 lap shoot-out at the end of the race where that tire was quick enough to win. It didn't happen for a number of reasons. The Hoosier had poor life, sure, but that's only part of it. The biggest issue was just the numbers game. Hoosier only had a couple cars and Goodyear had all of the powerhouse teams. One of the Bodine's (Geoff?) was able to take a couple poles, though, including Indy.

As a plan of attack, Hoosier did well. Win qualifying, take the small battles that get headlines and harass the much larger enemy. They just didn't have the money to continue the battle.

Hoosier has many fewer resources than Goodyear, and they did struggle to put out a good Grand-Am tire. It was more of a quality control issue than general performance. Most of the tires would be reasonable, but then every once in a while you'd get a set that was just awful and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason why. By pretty much all accounts, though, they were better than their predecessors, Goodyear. The present Pirelli is better than either. God forbid, double stinting is even an option if it's cool!

============================================================

It's fairly tough to copy a rubber compound. Once it's vulcanized, you can't just melt it down and see what's inside. You can look at belt angles and construction techniques. That's probably worth something to the really small companies that have competed against GY (McCreary, M&H, etc.), but I find it highly unlikely that anyone has been able to beat GY by looking at GY tires.

On the same train of thought. Michelin ships all their race tires on climate controlled trucks. They issue you the tires just before you use them. When you're done they collect them all. There are no unaccounted for tires that anyone can cut apart and attempt to reverse engineer. So, A. It shows there are secrets that can be found out by looking at used tires and B. It shows how serious they are about keeping their cards to their vest.

============================================================

Tire competition is only cool if you've got the better tire. I agree, that I don't much care for it. There's nothing in it for the fan, and most of the time it makes a whole bunch of busy work for the team. Overall, it's just another variable that I'd rather not have to deal with. Having said that, as a tire company, I think it could be as an attractive marketing tool as the nameplate on any car. Competition has pitfalls for everyone involved. It also has advantages. Marketing has to figure out if one out-weighs the other.

[Fat Boy]

Originally posted by desmo
There was a French guy named Andre Dugast who for years constructed hand-made tires for racing bicycles that were sought after by pro riders.

The little operation was bought by one of the team pro mechanics when Andre retired a few years back and moved to Holland where production has increased tenfold- to around 400 tires a week. And they're still sought after.

Damn you, you bastard! Now I've got to go spend $500 on a pair of tubies. Can you just keep this type of thing to yourself!