NASCAR NOTEBOOK From Daytona

Potential partners: Baseball's champion could be teaming up with NASCAR's. Looking to tap into the popularity of the World Series-winning Boston Red Sox, Roush Racing has had preliminary talks with Boston owner John Henry about forming a possible partnership. Rumors circulating Thursday had Henry possibly buying a stake in the Roush organization. But Roush general manager Geoff Smith said any talks with the baseball owner concerned cross-promotion with the Red Sox. "Jack Roush as long as he lives is going to want to control and operate these race teams," Smith said. "Not to rule out that there isn't a proposition that could be advanced for some sort of affiliation at some time, but right now we like the prospect of an affiliation from a marketing standpoint."
Burning rubber: Goodyear officials pulled another 600 tires out of circulation Thursday because of a manufacturer problem that was causing them to either blister or lose the tread. NASCAR's only tire supplier had already called back 300 tires because the same problems surfaced last weekend. In all, Goodyear took 900 tires from the same group of serial numbers that they feared might suffer from "tread delamination." "We want to do everything we can to provide the best product we can," said Goodyear's Stu Grant. "We met with NASCAR at 7 o'clock this morning after we got our data and told them what we were going to do, explained our results." Goodyear officials said they actually only had problems with eight tires, but pulled the rest as a precaution before the twin qualifying races. Grant said Goodyear workers had been through the Nextel Cup garage Thursday morning to take the remaining tires from the teams. Grant insisted there would not be a tire shortage for the 500. Ryan Pemberton, crew chief for Joe Nemechek, said Goodyear took a dozen tires from them. Nemechek had problems with two this week. But Pemberton said he was more concerned about the tires overheating than he was about the tread separation. "The tires are running extremely hot and we are very concerned about that," Pemberton said. "Goodyear may have solved this one problem, but the new problem is the tires are running at about 280 degrees and at most they should be around 250. It is just a lot of worries right now for the biggest race of the year." Goodyear officials said there were no tire problems in either of Thursday's qualifying races.
Burning rubber: Goodyear officials pulled another 600 tires out of circulation Thursday because of a manufacturer problem that was causing them to either blister or lose the tread. NASCAR's only tire supplier had already called back 300 tires because the same problems surfaced last weekend. In all, Goodyear took 900 tires from the same group of serial numbers that they feared might suffer from "tread delamination." "We want to do everything we can to provide the best product we can," said Goodyear's Stu Grant. "We met with NASCAR at 7 o'clock this morning after we got our data and told them what we were going to do, explained our results." Goodyear officials said they actually only had problems with eight tires, but pulled the rest as a precaution before the twin qualifying races. Grant said Goodyear workers had been through the Nextel Cup garage Thursday morning to take the remaining tires from the teams. Grant insisted there would not be a tire shortage for the 500. Ryan Pemberton, crew chief for Joe Nemechek, said Goodyear took a dozen tires from them. Nemechek had problems with two this week. But Pemberton said he was more concerned about the tires overheating than he was about the tread separation. "The tires are running extremely hot and we are very concerned about that," Pemberton said. "Goodyear may have solved this one problem, but the new problem is the tires are running at about 280 degrees and at most they should be around 250. It is just a lot of worries right now for the biggest race of the year." Goodyear officials said there were no tire problems in either of Thursday's qualifying races.
Fix it up: Mark Martin thought he had a good chance to win his final Daytona 500. Then he was caught up in an accident in one of Thursday's qualifying races that damaged his No. 6 Ford. "I believe I could win the Daytona 500 with that car, but I don't know if they can fix that," Martin said. Hands on his hips and a look of a disgust on his face, Martin watched helplessly as his Roush Racing team tried to repair the damage. Crew chief Pat Tryson said the team would do everything possible to fix the damage because the car was far superior to the backup. "Our plan right now is to not practice [today] and just get it ready," Tryson said. "Mark doesn't care if he practices at all, but we want to practice on Saturday just to make sure everything is OK."