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Adam Jordan, tire specialist on the Carl Edwards team, checks tires after they came off the car during the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Indianapolis last Sunday. Tom Strickland
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The whining needs to stop
For all those who are tired of NASCAR’s tire-gate, you may need to skip the next 300 words or so.
The whining and complaining from drivers, fans and almost anyone who had anything to do with Sunday’s Brickyard 400 has been at the top of the racing news.
If you missed it (and how could you), the Goodyear tires used by all the teams on the series were unable to stand up to the conditions of the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway, coupled with the new design of the Car of Tomorrow, being used for the first time at the track in Sunday’s race.
It resulted in tires that wore much faster than normal, a number of blowouts, cars driving slower than their maximum speed and about a third of the race being run under caution. Many of those were cautions mandated by NASCAR so teams could go change tires and not push it.
People hate that one of the series’ biggest races got nearly ruined by the conditions. But let’s step back and take some perspective on this.
If a big football game gets played in five inches of snow, or a torrential rainstorm, it darn well affects teams being able to do things the way they normally do.
But guess what? The game is still big, the stakes are still high and everyone is facing the same circumstances.
And even though Tiger Woods wasn’t there, a few of us watched the British Open golf tournament earlier this month. Conditions at times were brutal, with 50 mile-per-hour wind gusts and temperatures that more closely resemble our Novembers.
But everyone was playing the same golf course, facing the same elements. They weren’t making as many birdies or hitting as many great shots as the name of the game became survival. But it still was a big deal.
If any sort of event becomes a game of survival, then so be it. Teams still found a way to do what they had to do to get around the track in one piece.
Sometimes a “race” doesn’t become exactly about driving as fast as you can. That’s when a true competitor finds a way to get it done anyway.
Hamlin’s hundred
It seems like yesterday that Denny Hamlin began his Sprint Cup career. But in fact, the young driver will make his 100th series start this weekend at Pocono.
It’s been his most successful track. In five starts, Hamlin has two victories and never has finished worse than sixth.
Hamlin has climbed to eighth in series points after a solid recent stretch.
Rookies north
of the border
The top two drivers in the Nationwide Series standings will be rookies again in Montreal Saturday.
Clint Bowyer skipped last year’s event at the road course. Brad Keselowski was with the JR Motorsports team but was replaced by Andy Pilgrim for this race a year ago.
Bowyer leads Keselowski by 173 points in the standings.
Adios, amigos
In the same week it’s going to Canada, NASCAR announced this week the Nationwide Series won’t be returning to Mexico City next year.
The series had run the past four years on the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course.
“Though the years, we’ve gone to different paces and moved on,” NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton said in a Tuesday teleconference. “We’ve gone to Australia, we’ve gone to Japan, we’ve gone to Mexico. And Mexico, I don’t think we’ve ever said we would be there permanently.”
Christian Potts
366-3531
cpotts@normantranscript.com
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