Brickyard race should award maillot jaune to Jimmie Johnson
For the uninitiated, ol’ Left Turns lives a dual life as 10 Speed here on STLtoday, blogging about bicycling, which is an advertising vehible like NASCAR only with human power instead of horse power.
I spent all day Sunday seeing yellow … with the maillot jaune, i.e. yellow jersey, awarded to the winner of the Tour de France in the morning and yellow flag after yellow flag flying in the afternoon during the Allstate 400 at the Brickyward at Indianapolos Motor Speedway.
All of the NASCAR yellows were the result of tire problems throughout the race. Excessive wear on the right rear tires caused problems all day, and NASCAR had to drop “competition yellows” every 10-12 laps so the tires wouldn’t blow and send cars into the wall. Like, Matt Kenseth in the yellow No. 17, who got the right rear of his car basically blown out because the right rear tire blew.
Jimmie Johnson finally won the race, coming out of the pits on the last “competition” yellow then outracing cyclist Carl Edwards to the brick finishing line.
Carlos Sastre got the yellow jersey and a champaign toast in the final stage of the Tour de France. Jimmie Johnson, the winner of NASCAR’s Allstate 400 at the Brickyard, needed both after all the yellow flags in the race Sunday. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena)
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What a fiasco that was. Shades of Michelin and the F1 race at Indy. I got bored with it before the half-way point. Had to feel sorry for NASCAR…they tried. Didn’t Goodyear test there with the COT?
They tested there in April, but it wasn’t under similar weather conditions and it was only three cars. Last year, there were problems, but NASCAR conducted an open test there closer to the actual race. There are tire problems there every year, but NASCAR is able to work through them. This year, the COT threw them for a loop and Goodyear brought the wrong tire. If this is considered the #2 race of the season, there should be an open test here EVERY year.
Disclaimer: I am a NASCAR fan. I don’t use Goodyear tires either in my family car nor in competition (I prefer Hoosier tires).
In her report “NASCAR not to blame for tire fiasco at Brickyard”, AP writer Jenna Fryer gave NASCAR an undeserved pass. NASCAR was very much responsible for part of Sunday’s fiasco. They definitely should have conducted open testing and it does not require 20-20 hindsight to see it.
As an employee of a company that manufactures products I can tell you that it is unrealistic to expect a product to perform to customer needs unless you can test that product the way it will be used; Goodyear did not have that opportunity on the troublesome Indy track surface. If readers will recall, Goodyear was under fire not long ago for providing too hard of a tire which lead to borderline dangerous handling with cars sliding almost out of control. The result was a very public outburst from Tony Stewart among others. Without the opportunity for needed testing, they were left with making their best guess of compounds and they erred on the side of too soft.
NASCAR and Goodyear share equal parts of responsibility for an absolute sham of a race. We can only credit NASCAR with making the best of a bad situation, unlike those jerks who run Formula 1 (thankfully absent from these shores) after their Indy fiasco some years back.