Today it was announced that the Stewart-Hass Team will be fined $500 million and 250 owners points and 250 driver points (biggest fine or points penelty ever) after the No. 14 Old Spice/Office Depot Chevy driven by team owner/driver Tony Stewart in the 51st annual Daytona 500, on Sunday for using an unaproved tire that was designed by Hoosier Tire Co. and is not approved by NASCAR.
The car was found to be in violation of Sections 12-4-A (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4-Q (car, car parts, components and/or equipment used do not conform to NASCAR rules).
This came after Goodyear took back eight right-side tires that it had assigned to teams, believing that they came from a possible bad batch that could have resulted in some of the tire problems Sprint Cup teams had Thursday during the Gatorade Duel 150-mile qualifying races at Daytona International Speedway.
The tires were replaced Friday, according to a Goodyear spokesman. Goodyear Director of Race Tire Sales Greg Stucker had said earlier in the day that the company was trying to figure out what had happened after Ryan Newman, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Mark Martin had problems in the 150-mile qualifiers, Goodyear noticed that portions of their tires in question were all manufactured on the same day.
So Goodyear took back the eight tires that had the same components made on that day as a precautionary measure. Results of any tests won’t be known until next week, said Goodyear general manager of racing tires Stu Grant.
No other tires will be mounted for the Daytona 500 on Sunday that came from that batch, Grant said Saturday morning at Daytona International Speedway. "It looked like either a tire that blistered and kept blistering or a tire that was severely worn," Grant said.
"It looked a little more severe than some of the other ones. It looked different enough that it’s why we looked at the sequence numbers and see if there was anything common there. We noticed a common processing date for one of our manufacturing components." The teams were not doing anything excessive with the setups, Grant said. "Everything we know is circumstantial right now," Grant said. "You look at it and you say you have the same common processing date for these tires, so let’s get them back and be sure."
Saturday during final practice Ryan Newman blew a tire and wrecked himself and boss Stewart. Both went to back-up cars and Newman went to a third car for Sundays 500. They blamed the tiremaker for providing a poor product that cost them their race cars before NASCAR's biggest event of the year.
"Same stuff that we always talk about every year, failures Goodyear has," said Stewart, who frequently takes the tiremaker to task. "I think that's part of their marketing campaign; the more we talk about it, the more press they get.
Hoosier Racing Tire Corp. wishes to congratulate Indiana's Tony Stewart on being the only driver to have the balls to use our tire. Tony has long been a favorite of the Hoosier organization during his developmental stages to where he is today--a Sprint Cup car owner.
A lot has been written about Tony Stewart over the past few years and now without question, he is recognized as one of the most talented drivers to ever get behind the wheel of a race car.
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