iNSIDE SCOOP: Too Much of a Good(year) Thing

FONTANA, Calif. – When you give a racer an inch, you’d best figure on him taking at least a mile. Maybe two, knowing racers as I do.

That’s pretty much the story here at Auto Club Speedway, where the number of exploded left-side tires matched the number of NCAA brackets blown up by a rash of upsets.

A combination of low air pressure, increased downforce and a wide-open camber rule combined to put undue pressure on the left-side tires of some cars on Sunday, and they included Kevin Harvick, Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon.

As for air pressure, Goodyear recommends 22 pounds in the left front and 20 in the left rear as minimums to keep the tires under the car and not scattered to the four winds. Teams ran less than that in an effort to generate more grip on Auto Club Speedway’s aging pavement.

NASCAR also allowed the teams more room to play in the rear camber department, and play they did. Most of the cars looked, for lack of a better term, like they were running on the outsides of the left tires and the insides of the rights. That in effect was the case, and it caused multiple problems for many teams. 

Gordon, who had the race practically gift-wrapped when Johnson’s left front tire went tango-uniform, lost the lead when Clint Bowyer spun two laps from the finish when his left rear tire did the same.

On the restart, Gordon got run over and eventually finished 13th. He was, you could say, not happy.

 “They gave me the most incredible race car today, and it’s just so disappointing for it to end like that,” Gordon said. “I hate the caution came out. I hate Goodyear was not prepared today for what happened. They are so good at what they do and that is just uncalled for.  

“We were having a tire issue there on that last long run and I just backed off. When I saw the No. 48 (Johnson) had issues, I was just hoping we would make it to the end, and I was just going as slow as I possibly could, trying to maintain the lead, and cars were just blowing tires left and right all around me.”  

The guys who won the race, Kyle Busch and his crew chief Dave Rogers, didn’t have a speck of tire trouble all weekend. Why? Because they played it safe. 

 “It’s like playing with fire,” Busch said. “If you pour too much gas on it--you let too much air out of it--it’s going to go ‘Boom.’”

Added Rogers: “You put 12 pounds in left sides and you're going 200 miles an hour in California, you might have a left-side tire problem. That's awful low.”  

Yes, air pressure does rise once you get going, and it will rise to more than the recommended minimum. But what it takes out of the tire is the key. Camber, especially aggressive angles of camber, are the gas on the fire that Busch was talking about.

 “Over the past few years, we’ve been on a path to add mechanical grip, give more options to the teams,” NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said. “We’ve opened up camber rules for grip in both the front and rear of the car.

“They have a lot of tools to use if they choose to do so.”

Choose your tools with care, is what I think Pemberton is saying.

Kurt Busch put it best. “This is not a Goodyear problem,” he said afgter finishing third. “We were lucky. We had our tire problem with two minutes to go in practice, and that allowed us to go into a conservative approach overnight. Goodyear is doing a good job. It’s the same type of tire, but here’s what we have: we have faster cars, more downforce, and NASCAR is allowing us to put whatever cambers we want into the cars, and therefore, it’s up to the team’s discretion if you’re going to have a problem or not.”

Some did, some didn’t. Bet they won’t play so aggressively the next time this comes up. The late great Dick Trickle always said that the finish first, you must first finish, and he was right.