#9 again..?? / Indy Race discussion?

[Chris]

well now lets see....
When the INDY cars ran the Indy 500... the #9 car won the race... that same weekend the #9 car in the CUP series won the race.

THIS weekend the INDY cars have already raced and again the #9 car has won.  Since this is the same deal only in reverse and now the CUP cars are at INDY... you figure the #9 CUP car can again pull off the win..??

1/2 the people picked him in my fantasy pool

[KurtBuschFan]

If he can hang on to the car with the way these tires have been so far....

[Chris]

yeah.. who knows......
Obvious there are gonna be blown tires and wrecks... just have to hope it's not you...
I don't see this getting any better...??
May see the teams use those Pocono Tires they were talking about on SPEED this morning.
Now THAT will be interesting...  Motors aren't turned for those and they said they are 2 seconds a lap faster

Not even to 1/2 way yet and we just had the 4th competition yellow... think they have used the 6th set of tires out of 10 they said they would use vefore switching to Pocono tires... gonna get interesting

[Chris]

Tire wear not getting any better...
5th competition yellow... tires still wore down to the cords on many cars including the leaders
I'm fairly sure we'll see those Pocono tires brought out soon.

And we'll see teams start to use come kind of 'road course' strategy to try and get to the front as the race winds down.  Teams running in the back will have to do something to get up front.

pit crew guys are sure earning their money today...
I guess they should be glad it didn't rain overnight and wash ALL the rubber all the track.... a grean track would be really bad.

I suppose next season they have to have cars come in and run BEFORE testing starts (late models, or something) and just put rubber in the track.  May have to use a SUPER HARD tire next year like they had at Atlanta and guy just have to deal with it.

[Chris]

I'm thinking I see a "plan" in the making...
we're getting down to 55 laps to go....
They are talking like teams have 4?? sets to go.  They just put a set on...
They just had a competition yellow.. NASCAR had a "quickie" yellow... where everyone would all pit at once, and get back to racing quickly... But for some reason they rode around lap after lap after lap under yellow.
I predict that will be a common theme the rest of the race...
NASCAR will 'drag out' the yellows and keep from having to switch to the Pocono tires....

Only thing that will throw a money wrench in that will be if they have several accidents after 5 or 6 laps and that messes up the 10 lap runs.

Sure costing those owners like Roush and Hendrick some major money for tires.
10 sets for practice,.. and 14 sets for the race... per car.... at $1700 per set.

[Chris]

ya know...
I'm still curious...
10 to go everyone puts on their LAST set of tires...
What happens if there is a wreck and all these cars drive threw all this sharp debris... and need to come in and put on new tires because a tire is cut down....
entirely possible.. could happen,.. and you know the guys will get awful racing after just riding around for 150 laps... 
hhuummm

[20forLogano]

Absolute worst race I have ever seen and you can be darn sure Nascar will test there for the foreseeable future!!!  Seriously, what the heck was Nascar thinking not testing there?  New car at the 2nd biggest race of the year.  Very very bad call by them.  Now they did the event the best they could for safety and I applaude them for that but that doesn't excuse the pathetic race plans by them and Goodyear.  The only thing that was right today was the fact the best car won the race.

[Tonyfan14]

HA!! Today was a joke.  I have never watched a race that was as stupid as todays.

[Leadfoote]

HA!! Today was a joke.  I have never watched a race that was as stupid as todays.

Weren't worth gettin' up at 5am for.....I feel for the people that spent time and money gettin' themselves there.

[Blu]

 WHAT a FIASCO!!   The 2nd favorite race of the year for me being as its at Indy and tha is a special place to win IMHO.

I thought at least according to what jr. said they DID tire test there earlier this year? So..what the heck happened??

The track hasnt changed. The only difference I can see over last years is this... we have had several weeks of waaay above normal temps and lots of sunshine and VERY Very little rain. Not sure if that made a difference but..somehting evidently did.

Did you realize that sounding even worse than those tires lasting only 10 laps is that those tires only lasted 25 MILES!! Yeah that makes me wanna run out and  buy me some Goodyears!

NASCAR woulda been better off just having a 10 lap shootout and then a meet and greet the rest of the day. I suspect the fans woulda been as happy or happier at that. It woulda sure been better than then 10 lap "parades" we saw.

Thats was simply pathetic.....

[Chris]

The track hasnt changed. The only difference I can see over last years is this... we have had several weeks of waaay above normal temps and lots of sunshine and VERY Very little rain. Not sure if that made a difference but..somehting evidently did.

Forgot one little thing Blu... different CAR...  First time the CoT has ever been on the track.  Thats what made all the difference.
more top heavy, and more pressure on the right side tires.

Also you are right Goodyear DID do a tire test there...  I think the point people were making is that NASCAR didn't do a test with ALL the teams so they could see what was going on.
If they would of had a two day test with 50 or 60 cars and been there two days,.. this problem would of come to light THEN,.. and GoodYear could of made adjustments to the tire.  Would it of helped... Maybe yes,.. Maybe no... 
I can't see ANY way to fix it running THIS car at THAT track.... Only option is see is to run a tire thats as hard as a ROCK.  Yeah it'll slide around all over the place, have absolutely NO grip, and be hard to drive (just like Atlanta in the spring)... BUT the guys can run a fuel tank on it, and everyone will be in the situation.. and they can RACE with it.
Only reasonable solution I can see right up front.

[Blu]

Forgot one little thing Blu... different CAR...  First time the CoT has ever been on the track.  Thats what made all the difference.
more top heavy, and more pressure on the right side tires.

No bud, i didnt forget that. I was just thinking of track differences. I mean ...they KNOW Indy is hard on tires anyways, let alone add in the COT so Im not sure what the thinking was ya know?

Also you are right Goodyear DID do a tire test there...  I think the point people were making is that NASCAR didn't do a test with ALL the teams so they could see what was going on.
If they would of had a two day test with 50 or 60 cars and been there two days,.. this problem would of come to light THEN,.. and GoodYear could of made adjustments to the tire.  Would it of helped... Maybe yes,.. Maybe no... 

Chris, no offense bud but...HOW much testing do they need to do?? Seems like they would have prolly ran more than 12 laps at speed during these tests wouldnt they?? Are you saying it was inconclusive because of not enough cars or laps??
I mean...Im sure however many cars they had there that   there were certainly at least some indication of tire problems Yes? Add in practice laps and..wel...just seems there was more than enough laps to see there was a problem with excessive wear IMHO Ill just say that.

I can't see ANY way to fix it running THIS car at THAT track.... Only option is see is to run a tire thats as hard as a ROCK.  Yeah it'll slide around all over the place, have absolutely NO grip, and be hard to drive (just like Atlanta in the spring)... BUT the guys can run a fuel tank on it, and everyone will be in the situation.. and they can RACE with it.
Only reasonable solution I can see right up front.

I think I heard Carl Edwards say that exact same thing and I agree also. Its a level playing field if they're all sliding around , etc. and comes down to driver ability to adjust to that situation.

[Chris]

Also you are right Goodyear DID do a tire test there...  I think the point people were making is that NASCAR didn't do a test with ALL the teams so they could see what was going on.
If they would of had a two day test with 50 or 60 cars and been there two days,.. this problem would of come to light THEN,.. and GoodYear could of made adjustments to the tire.  Would it of helped... Maybe yes,.. Maybe no... 

Chris, no offense bud but...HOW much testing do they need to do?? Seems like they would have prolly ran more than 12 laps at speed during these tests wouldnt they?? Are you saying it was inconclusive because of not enough cars or laps??
I mean...Im sure however many cars they had there that   there were certainly at least some indication of tire problems Yes? Add in practice laps and..wel...just seems there was more than enough laps to see there was a problem with excessive wear IMHO Ill just say that.

NO Offense taken dude... no problem...
I think what I was trying so ineptly to say was this....
With the diamond grinding,.. they have to have a LOT of laps to basically fill in the grooves with rubber that are ground out.  Three cars can't do that by themselves. 
Jr said at the test they were down to the cords in 5 laps...
SO I'd say (from what Jr stated) there was questions left because the tire they had at the test wouldn't run enough laps... but the GoodYear folks figured when more cars showed up,.. that problem would fix it's self (afterall, in previous years it always had).  No one gave a thought to the car and the extra top heavy weight,.. and more pressure on the right side causing the problem which seems to be what happened...??

Each year when they have raced there in the past it has took all the practices combined for the track to 'rubber in' so the tires would get to the point where they were raceable...
And then it seems it may have taken a little of the race before the teams knew the tires were "safe".  Seems they often have a "yellow flag" to check the tires about lap 15 or 20 just to see how the tires are doing.  IN the past they look pretty good and they NASCAR cut them loose on their own the rest of the day.
Thats what I was saying about the "only" thing being different this year was the car.   The weight transfers over on the right side a lot more, and wears the right side tires a lot worse.  They had tire problems in the test... but I think that was something they expected.  IMO they expected that in the first practice session... and to some extent in the second session.
When the track hadn't started taking the rubber by the time the third session was going on NASCAR knew they were in trouble... with no way to fix it.
Another issue that caused problem is the CUP cars were the only cars putting rubber on the track.  Usuallt the "support race" is at the same race with the CUP cars and they are helping to lay down rubber also with their 3 practice sessions, and qualifying... but that is the same every year here also.

[KurtBuschFan]

I thought at least according to what jr. said they DID tire test there earlier this year? So..what the heck happened??

They were wearing through to the cords within 5 laps when Jr was testing there...are they too dumb to realize that's a BIG problem and it needed to be fixed before the race came around?