NASCAR apology over tires

Last week, 11 cautions were caused by tires disintegrating on the track.

Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service

NASCAR apologized Tuesday and took responsibility for the tire fiasco that marred Sunday’s running of the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Sprint Cup race was disrupted by repeated competition cautions as tires wore excessively in the 160-lap race. The longest green-flag run was 13 laps. There were 11 cautions, five for on-track incidents.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s vice president of competition, told a national teleconference with reporters that officials spoke at length with Goodyear officials again Tuesday. He said the sanctioning body remains intent on determining what happened and making sure there’s not a repeat of this type of race in the future.

“I can’t say enough how sorry we are, and it’s our responsibility, being NASCAR, that we don’t go through this situation again,” Pemberton said. “We’ve already got after it, and we’re moving forward with a plan to get ahead of the situation so we don’t go through this again.”

Several factors could have played into the situation, Pemberton said, from the length of time since the Goodyear tire test with three drivers in April — a period in which teams have made significant improvements with the new model Sprint Cup car — as well as the obvious debut of the new car at the track. In addition, Pemberton is still trying to discover why the disintegrating tires created more of a fine powder on the track than in the past.

This season, teams have made substantial gains as they adjust to racing with NASCAR’s new model week to week.

Last year, the car appeared in 16 races before making its full-season debut this year. Drivers tested at Indy, a 2.5-mile track that NASCAR concedes is unique in the sport, when they were still figuring out how to manage NASCAR’s larger tracks.

Since then, they’ve made greater advancements with the model than the series normally sees over the course of a season.

“I think six months is an eternity on car improvement from the teams’ side,” Pemberton said.

The center of gravity for the car is shifted slightly higher and the safety features on it create a more even balance throughout the model.

That more evenly balances the left side and right side weight of the car, which creates a greater load on the right-side tires.