Did Goodyear Fail NASCAR At Kansas Speedway?

Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports

If there is a point during a NASCAR broadcast that you see the network interviewing someone from Goodyear it usually means one of two things; either there is a long rain delay and we have already heard from all of the drivers or there is some sort of tire issue. Well, there was no rain to speak of on Sunday at Kansas Speedway.

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Heading into the opening race of the second round of the chase there were several question marks and storylines. Drivers who needed to step up and drivers who may have been performing over their own heads were all topics that were discussed. One topic that wasn not talked about leading up to the green flag but has been since is tire wear and tires in general. Sunday saw a race where numerous drivers experienced flat tires. Some of the drivers that had tire issues were chase drivers in Dale Earnhardt Jr, Brad Keselowski, Kasey Kahne, Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick.

Earnhardt Jr. had his tire let go while he was leading the race which caused him to smash into the wall pretty hard. Keselowski lost his tire while he was running in the top-five and his hit on the wall was similar to that of the No. 88 car. Kahne had his tire issues later in the race and he also got into the wall as a result. Harvick thought he had a tire issue and took his car to pit road only to later find out that all of his tires were up, Harvick was leading at the time when he thought there was an issue. Although eventually winner Joey Logano never had a tire issues, he did ask his team for frequent updates after his teammate Keselowski had a tire go down.

Following the race Keselowski spoke about his tire issues which put him into a hole heading into the final two races of this round.

"No, it was just Russian roulette and it was our turn. We didn’t do anything. Like I said, it was a game of Russian Roulette and it was our turn at the gun. It was Dale Jr.’s turn at the gun earlier."

Of all the drivers who spoke after their issues Keselowski was the only one to really put blame on the tires. Obviously referring to tire wear as Russian roulette is not exactly a compliment. It would seem that with 26 races prior to the chase and one of those 26 races being at Kansas, Goodyear should have had ample time to provide the drivers with a proper tire this past weekend. I know that a great deal goes into the process of providing drivers with tires and such, however the results Sunday simply were not good enough. A championship should not be decided on failing tires and with the number of tire issues that took place on Sunday it’s hard to say that the tires didn’t fail.

In the end Goodyear needs to do better because the drivers and teams deserve better.

Christopher Olmstead is the Editor of BeyondTheFlag.com on the FanSided Network. Follow us on Twitter @Beyond_The_Flag and “Like” us on Facebook.

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