NASCAR: Tires Win Races
In NASCAR talent will carry you far, but at the end of the day it’s tires that win races.
“Tires win races” a quote from Harry Hog in Days of Thunder that rings true at every race weekend.
Tires are also a subject in NASCAR that is taboo to question them on. You ask a question that is critical of Goodyear and the product they bring to the track you get a scripted two-part answer. First they have been a great partner and have done so much for the sport. Then part two, if pressed, the safety issues that occurred when Hoosier tried to enter the sport decades ago. The longer we get away from the two tire option the more you would think the infield care center was filled with injured drivers because of bad tires.
Lets get a couple facts out front before we get too far into this. NASCAR teams have to buy tires from Goodyear at every track at about $1500 per set. All those tires they purchase are destroyed at the track after the race used or not. Quick math, 12 sets of tires a race weekend $18,000 for 36 scheduled races is $648,000. You have to put Goodyear stickers on your car; you cannot have sponsorship from any other tire manufacturer on your car. Reason for that is very simple, Goodyear writes a big check to NASCAR every year. So when it comes to tires the box you have to work in is very small.
The closest we have come recently to even discussing another option for tires was after the disaster at Indy in 2008. Goodyear tires shredding after 15 laps, blowout after blowout, competition cautions every 12 laps. One of the crown jewels of NASCAR became a national laughing stock. The races there have had attendance and viewership problems since that race.
The discussion quickly turned to a wider Goodyear tire on a larger wheel that has not seen the light of day. Since then Hoosier has been building tires for full-bodied stock cars at superspeedways that have been bulletproof in the ARCA series. If you bring that up, the safety issues of 1995 and the “tire war” come back up. Talk of the tragic deaths of Niel Bonnett and Rodney Orr along with the massive injuries Ernie Irvan suffered is resurfaced and all talk stops.
NASCAR has put as much effort into keeping teams equipment equal and putting the sport in the drivers hands as they have anything. The side effect has been passing has gone down with long stretches of races getting stagnant. Last year with the new lower downforce package passing did help, but a bigger swing is needed to help keep viewers in the middle of the race. The Indy and Formula One series have done it with requiring different compound tires to be used during the race to some success.
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Imagine a race where you have cars on different tires that last different durations. You constantly have to do the math on pit stops and tire wear for several teams. More sponsors for more teams, lower costs to the teams themselves because of the competition for teams. You also add the brand competition in the stands with the fans and everyone wins. In today’s NASCAR where consistency is so important and all the engineers the teams employ, safety is not an issue. The only problem, that big check that Goodyear writes to NASCAR every year. It’s the internal conflict in the NASCAR offices where the fan almost always loses.