Terrified over tires? Chance of more failures has teams uneasy
I know not only the drivers and the crews but also the race fans are concerned about the tire issue last weekend at Kansas. The obvious fear is with Kansas being a 1.5-mile track and Charlotte being a 1.5-mile track, will there be the same issue. The tire problems that were reported were varied.
Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and Kasey Kahne all said they felt like their cars had a tire going down. In checking with the guys at Goodyear, at that point they hadn't been able to find anything wrong with those particular tires. Now obviously the story was different for the tires on Brad Keselowski and Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s cars.
While you won't find anyone who will point his finger at tire pressure or camber, there was clearly an issue that came out of it. A lot of tire specialists I spoke to this past week said it appears to be an issue with camber.
Will we see this again Saturday night here at Charlotte Motor Speedway? It's always a possibility and a probability if teams go too close to the edge again. Too much camber is like too low tire pressure. It will get you in trouble in the long run. It really boils down to how close to the edge to you want to run at this point in time.
It is always a concern with any team when you feel like you have a problem but decide to ignore it, because more times than not, it will come back to bite you. Do I really expect to see a repeat of what we saw at Kansas? No, I don't, because even though they are both 1.5-mile tracks, they really are totally different. So I am not expecting anything Saturday night like we saw last weekend.
VIDEO: Brad Keselowski blows a tire, wrecks at Kansas Speedway
