A Voice For The Fans ~ Tires, Fires, And Fear
4/29/2014
PattyKay Lilley
First
Things First
Dale
Earnhardt would have turned 63 on April 29, 2014.
HAPPY
BIRTHDAY DALE!
Gone but
never forgotten
Rest in
Peace
I bid
you welcome gentle readers, to one of those discussions we'd all rather not
have, but have we will, because we must. Allow me to extend a warm welcome as
well to our assigned reader of NASCAR writings, somewhere in the beautiful
Queen's City of Charlotte, North Carolina. I do hope your stay is a pleasant
one. This subject is important, so please pass this one up the chain of command
when you finish reading.
At our
last meeting, many of us watched and discussed a Richmond race from 20 years
ago, with an eye toward comparing the TV presentation then with the Carnival
side show productions of today. Aside from finding what we already knew, that
there simply is no comparison, those of us that watched the latest Richmond
scramble on Saturday evening saw yet another chapter in shredding tires and
blazing fires. Now, tires and fires might make a fine line in one of our
Country songs, but never, never on a race track. Blown tires can and have killed drivers, though mercifully, not recently. Fire? The one thing I can tell you with complete certainty
is that all race drivers fear fire. Ask any one of them. Ask all of them. It's
one of the accepted facts in racing. Fire not only kills, but does so in a most
cruel and unkind way.
Mr.
France, Mr. Helton and anyone else with the power to control the goings-on
during a race, please listen up. While a fire hot enough to melt the front of a
racecar might light up an otherwise dark night, it is not a desirable part of
any race. If it can... and did, several times over... melt the cars, it could
just as easily have melted the drivers within. If you gentlemen have never been
trapped within a burning car, perhaps you should try it, just for the sake of
perspective. Or, conversely, you could ask someone like Glenn "Fireball"
Roberts... were he still alive.
At least
four times that I can vouch for, drivers had right front tires not just chunk
up and come apart as we're used to seeing, but shred into those little cords of
rubber that resemble spaghetti as much as anything else. Little tendrils of
rubber then wrap themselves around a super-heated brake rotor and it's on! Fire
on the right front; run boys run! (Apologies to Charlie Daniels) Those drivers
having their night brightened and pretty much ended by a tire fire of large
proportion include Clint Bowyer, Reed Sorenson, Cole Whitt and Ricky Stenhouse
Jr. If you're counting, that's two Toyotas, one Chevy and one Ford. That seems
a strange place to observe parity, but by Jove, we've got it! One driver, Reed
Sorenson, was literally lifted and dragged from his flaming car by a crew member
from Kasey Kahne's team. Many thanks to that crew member,
whoever you are. The following video shows the seriousness of the fire
in Sorenson's car and the assistance from the flaming vehicle.
In the
early days of this month, my column attempted to answer the question of where to place
the blame for these shredding tires, and at that time I placed it squarely on
the shoulders of over-zealous crew chiefs playing with the new toy NASCAR gave
them, unlimited camber. In fairness, that may still be the case, but NASCAR,
it's time to step in and control the kids before they kill each other, and I'm
not referring to the banty rooster "fights"
after the race. Those are amusing; fire is not.
The tire
compound used on the right sides at Richmond Saturday night was Goodyear's new
multi-zone tread, which features two compounds in its construction. The inside
two inches, which bear the biggest burden of heat and force, are supposed to be
a more durable compound, while the outer 10 inches of the contact patch is
softer -- based off the compound for last season's Richmond races -- for
improved traction. We've seen this tire before at Atlanta and Kansas last year
and at Texas this year along with the recent testing at Michigan. Ironically, it is the inside of the tires that
is shredding. Something isn't working as expected.
Two
things almost jumped off the screen at me as I typed that. The first, and I believe most important thing is that bit about
basing the tire on the compound used for last year's Richmond races. As we
discussed thoroughly in the earlier column, this is not last year's car, and it
really doesn't take a genius to figure out that if the car is different, then
one might want to alter the tires to accommodate. The second fact is that until
Saturday, this tire compound(s) had not been run on a short track. Funny thing
about short tracks; they cause a lot of braking, which causes a lot of
friction, causing rotors to overheat and glow "cherry red" as Benny
always described it.
And just
when you thought we had it figured out, let me point out that though we've only
seen this tire at Texas and Richmond this year, we have seen those shredding
cords at tracks as variable as California and Martinsville, though not
resulting in such raging infernos as we saw Saturday night at Richmond. What to
do, what to do? One thing I will promise is that Goodyear is not purposely
bringing a dangerous tire to a race track. However, something I've always known
is that Goodyear doesn't call the shots on what type of tires
are paired with which race track. That distinction belongs to NASCAR and
always has. They tell Goodyear what they want from the tires at a given track
and Goodyear complies.
Now then
gentle readers, just listen to what the drivers have been saying this year and
you'll find a clue. Almost to a man (and woman) they have been complimenting
the tires because at most tracks, they have been wearing enough to create the
need for "tire management", something that has been missing from our
racing for some time now. BUT... there's that word again... one thing that tire
management entails is the common sense to come get new ones, not when your fuel
is running low, but when your tires are giving up... and about to give out.
The idea
is a good one, but it takes some major cooperation from NASCAR, Goodyear, crew
chiefs and drivers. What we seem to have at this
juncture is NASCAR asking Goodyear for a tire that will wear out before the gas
tank empties out, which sounds reasonable and was... when the gas tanks held 22
gallons instead of the paltry 17 or so they hold today. To provide a tire that
will wear that quickly is really flirting with the danger zone when it comes to
softness of compound. Then, to make it even more fun, they put no restrictions
on camber. Isn't that a lovely match with tires that may already be too soft?
Next, enter the crew chief, with a new light in his eye created by the mere
thought of unlimited camber. Can he resist that extra few degrees? Not on your
life. That wrench is going to turn. Lastly, we have the driver, and yes, he is
also an integral part of the equation. I've heard it said, and I firmly believe
it to be true, that when a driver straps into a racecar, his brains migrate
from his head to the seat of his pants and remain there for the duration of the
race. Ask him to slow down or take care of tires and it's simply not in his
vocabulary. I can vividly recall one race... and I do believe it might have
been at Richmond, when Richard was pleading with Dale not to put so much wear
on the tires, as he was really abusing them. Dale's voice came back clearly,
"I'll apologize to them when I get to the front."
“There are a number of cars that don’t have
any issues at all and they have got a good balanced car and everything is
fine,” Goodyear Racing executive Stu Grant told Motor Racing Network during its
race broadcast. “But what we’re seeing is the inside shoulder of the right
front is wearing through the tread and through the overlay."
“It’s
important to have a good balanced car; it’s important to not have a lot of
camber, and it’s important to try to stay off that right front. But having said
that, it looks like the operating window is pretty narrow for these guys. If
they miss it by a little bit, you’re going to get into that right front and
we’re going to have to work on that.”
So
gentle readers, and you too Mike Helton, we have what appears to be the makings
for another perfect storm, and it's high time someone recognized that and did
something to avert it. Put a reasonable limit back on tire camber and mean it! Ask
Goodyear to put a bit more substance in the current compound, as fire has no
place on a race track. Maybe enlarge the gas tanks some in order to offset the
harder tire. There are things that can be done, and now is the time to do them.
Let's not wait until we have someone seriously burned... or worse. Keep in mind
that the next race at Richmond is the one that sets the final field for that
ever-so-popular "Chase." Let's not make a complete joke of it. The ball's in your court Mike. Please... don't fumble this one.
It could mean the life of a driver. Oh, and in that 20-year old Richmond race
we watched last week, there were no fires, no aero-push and very few cautions.
What were you doing right then that you're not doing today?
And now
gentle readers, it's time for our Classic Country
Close-out. As mentioned in our last conversation, I have two all-time favorite
songs in Country Music. The first, "Remember Me", you heard last time
and today you shall hear the second one. This song dates back to 1945 and was
written by Fred Rose for Roy Acuff. Since then, I
think it's been sung by almost every Country singer known to mankind. My
favorite memory of this one is going with my girlfriend Patti to a lounge
called Carmen's All American Club in E. Rochester. On the weekends they had the
services of a local C&W band headed by Lefty Evans, a local TV personality.
The first night we went there, they were about 90% through the song, and I
asked Lefty if he would play another verse. He and the band played the entire
song through again. After that, she and I went back many times, mostly for the
great music, and every time we walked in the door, Lefty would halt the band
and break into "Blue Eyes Cryin' in the
Rain." I have this as recorded by more than a dozen artists, including
Elvis Presley, but my favorite of all is this one, by the Sons of the Pioneers.
Please enjoy:
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~ PattyKay