Allstate 400: Rubber, Rubber Everywhere—And Not a Bit Sticking to the Track

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How many times Sunday did you hear that “The track didn’t rubber up"?

Many casual fans may have had to be schooled in the phrase “rubbering up a race track”. They got quite the quick education on Sunday at Indianapolis.

Fans have put up with bad racetrack tire combinations before. Charlotte’s Lowes Motor Speedway and the Goodyear boys have been at odds several times in the last few years.

Indy itself had one of the most catastrophic tire scenarios in modern times when the Formula 1 gents visited in 2006. That resulted in Michelin pulling their tires out of competition for the race weekend, leaving only six cars to start the US Grand Prix. That could have been avoided with a little flexibility of their rules.

NASCAR found out that the track wasn’t taking rubber on Friday. And it didn’t take rubber on Saturday like it had in the past.

In previous years the complaining about poor tire wear usually disappeared about race time on Sunday when the laps that the cars had turned in practice and qualifying had left a significant amount of rubber imbedded in the abrasive asphalt of Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

But this time around, the new heavier car with more side pressure on the tires was turning the tires into dust that couldn’t adhere to the track, making for racing that was not what NASCAR, drivers, teams, and especially fans wanted to see.

It was interesting how Rick Hendrick, Richard Childress, Ray Evernham, and Joe Gibbs all went public with their support of NASCAR and Goodyear. And that leads us to this weeks BUZZ ON PIT ROW:

Jimmy Johnson had this to say about the race in his post race news conference:

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“I commend NASCAR in handling today like they did. I’m sure it was long and boring today, but NASCAR called a great race. They kept us from tearing up racecars for no reason. We had a couple of guys blow tires out. But I think as an entire sport, we did everything we could today. We’ve learned a lot. We’ll take our lumps, I’m sure, and come back next year and put on a better show.”

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What else could NASCAR have done to solve their tire/ race problem?

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Let us know your thoughts and we may use them on this weeks ON PIT ROW radio show. Listen live at www.onpitrow.com from 5-7pm ET and then for more racing talk INSIDE ARCA takes the stage from 7-8:30pm ET at www.arcaracing.com.