NASCAR Cup Series

Goodyear issues warning to crew chiefs, who are all ears

Published Oct. 10, 2014 7:45 p.m. ET

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The Chase for the Sprint Cup standings took a major turn last weekend at Kansas Speedway, partly due to a number of tire issues that affected contenders Dale Earnhardt Jr., Brad Keselowski, Kevin Harvick and Matt Kenseth.

While each issue was not the same, the concern about the tires led Keselowski to say after his run-in with the wall it was "just Russian roulette and it was just our turn."

Goodyear officials later said several of the issues were due to aggressive setups on the cars, while the teams affected argued their setups were not aggressive at all.

Ahead of this weekend's Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Goodyear issued a bit of a warning saying the high speeds will lead to more wear on the right front tires.

''They have got to be aware of the additional load that that speed puts on that right front tire,'' Stu Grant, general manager of worldwide racing for Goodyear, told the Associated Press Friday. ''The air pressures that you ran in May may not be sufficient to carry the load on that right front this weekend because they're running half a second faster than the track record. ... it's important that as these guys set their cars up that they're aware of the additional camber gain you're going to get with the additional load and you need to watch that air pressure because it's got to be sufficient to carry that load.''

For title contender Kevin Harvick, the concern over a potential tire failure last weekend at Kansas led to a green flag pit stop from the third spot with just over 50 laps to go in the race. The late-race stop kept Harvick from contending for the victory, led to a 12th-place finish and dropped him to sixth in the Chase standings.

Harvick's crew chief Rodney Childers believes what happened last weekend at Kansas was a "wake-up call" to everyone in the Sprint Cup garage, but added that he has faith in Goodyear.

"Goodyear's been all over it this week," Childers told FOXSports.com. "I feel like they've done a good job communicating. We had a meeting with them on Monday and talked about a lot of different things. We talked to NASCAR about some things, too.

"You're always worried. They've got to do the best job they can, but there are some circumstances you don't really understand what happened. It happened to us a couple times earlier in the year."

With so much at stake in the Chase, Childers said a conservative approach is the best approach to avoiding potential issues that could cost the team a shot at the title.

"At this point, you've got to play it as safe as you can and don't take any chances, even if you have to give up a tenth or two on the race track, you can't take a chance on blowing a tire," he said. "We've tried to play it as safe as we've been able to, but there's some guys that did hurt tires last week. They had chords showing before they ever blew a tire. We didn't have any of that. Hopefully we won't have any tomorrow night, either."

While there may be disagreements over who is at fault, many in the Sprint Cup Series garage feel Goodyear is doing all they can to bring good tires week-in and week out.

"I feel bad for Goodyear, because when we just have a normal race when there's no issues, nobody comes on the radio or on TV or talks to the reporters and says, 'Man, Goodyear built a hell of a tire, it had no failures, no issues, and it had plenty of grip.' Nobody really commends Goodyear. They just kick them when they have a problem," said Slugger Labbe,Paul Menard's crew chief. "Goodyear can't dictate our frame heights, our camber, our camber gains, our air pressures. They can't police that.

"So if something happens, boom, the spotlight's on them and they pay the price. I feel bad for Goodyear and their people, because they get beat up. It's tough because what NASCAR for rules, we make a ton of downforce, haul ass through the corners, and the motors are running as good as they've ever run, and, oh by the way, we're in the part of the season where it's cooling off a lot."

Labbe added that the tires have to keep up with all of that, and it's no easy proposition.

"From where we were in Vegas to where we are today is night and day difference," he said. "You just give smart people, smart engineers and smart race teams time, they're going to get better, and it's hard for Goodyear to keep up."

Despite the issues over the past few weeks, Labbe is not convinced all of them were necessarily Goodyear's fault and argued if the series raced at Kansas again this weekend there would not be as many problems.

Labbe is not alone in the Sprint Cup garage in hesitating to blame the tire manufacturer for all the recent issues. His Richard Childress Racing teammate Gil Martin, crew chief on Austin Dillon's No. 3 Chevrolet, said there are no concerns about tires for Saturday night's race.

Martin echoed Labbe's thoughts, saying most of the time when teams have issues they blame Goodyear, when really it is aggressive setups, tire pressures and camber that ultimately are to blame for the problems.

While the two teams of Labbe and Martin are not racing for the title in the Chase, Jason Ratcliff -- crew chief for contender Matt Kenseth -- said that he agrees Goodyear is not entirely at fault for the issues seen over the last few weeks. He said this even though Kenseth also was forced to hit pit road just after Harvick during last week's race at Kansas with a potential tire issue.

Ratcliff pointed out there were some issues with the right front tires during the Coca-Cola 600 earlier this year, and believes it will be a matter of luck whether or not a tire issue bites you in Saturday night's Bank of America 500 at Charlotte.

"Occasionally you'll have one or two problems, and that's about what we saw in the spring race," said Ratcliff. "I don't know that any of them were fatal, I think most guys made it to pit road before they had big problems. It could definitely bring you to pit road unscheduled, and that will lose you some track position if the caution comes out when that happens. For us last week, we had a tire vibration -- we never really found anything wrong with the tire -- that brought us to pit road early. Caution came out and we went a lap down. I feel like it cost us seven or eight spots at the end of the day.

"It's the same for everyone," he said. "Goodyear does what they can, the best they can. There's a lot of tires that go out throughout a weekend. I don't know how many thousands of tires that they produce throughout a weekend. So, if you have one or two problems, from an odds standpoint that's pretty good. You just hope it's not you on race day that has a problem."

Following Friday night's NASCAR Nationwide race, the concern over tires seemed to grow among the Sprint Cup competitors that participated. The race saw multiple tire issues among the front runners in the early stages with the same tire that will be used during Saturday night's race.

"The only thing I know to prevent the tire issues is to slow down," said Keselowski. "That doesn't seem like a very good plan. That's very frustrating and makes you feel like you're backed into a corner. Nobody likes to play prevent defense. We're all racers, we want to go as fast as we can, we want to challenge each other for the lead, pushing the pace, pushing ourselves to the limit. Essentially the limits of the cars, the cars, the limits of the drivers are below the threshold of the tires. That's not a good feeling."

VIDEO: Dale Earnhardt Jr. blows a tire while leading and hits the wall at Kansas

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