The Brickyard
Dear Goodyear,
Having watched the Brickyard 400 yesterday, I was yet again astounded at the poor quality of the tires you provided to the race teams. When the race cannot get through 20 to 30 laps without someone’s tires blowing out or cutting down, there is a serious problem. Your representatives complain that race teams crank the camber too far and don’t run proper air pressures, but how long has Goodyear been in racing? You people know exactly what crew chiefs do to tires, so why after all this time can you not come up with a tire that suits their needs? Race fans are tired of the excuses, not only for the record number of cautions poor tires have created this year, but for the risk you are putting the drivers in every time they strap in. Jimmie Johnson’s wreck, fire and black out yesterday showed how serious that risk is. Stop making excuses. Protect these people’s lives.
Until Goodyear can come up with a design and compound that is safer for racecar drivers, I will be boycotting your product. God knows having watched so many of your tires blow out over the course of the season, I hardly feel safe barreling down the 405 for an hour and a half everyday on them.
Sincerely,
KiplingKat/RHYLL/RedGriffin
And yes, I’m sending it.
Due to a lot of phone calls and other distractions, I had to watch the race yesterday in fits and starts. As you can tell from my letter above, it was a tough day for many race teams. Indy was not designed for stock car racing: the track has hardly any banking, is square and narrow. Combine that with really crappy tires and you have a big mess. The first caution happened 23 laps in as the Tide ride’s tire blew, shredding his entire left front fender and things proceeded to go downhill from there. Elliott was incredibly fast off the pole in the beginning and his pit crew was pulling off some great 13.4 second stops. But once he lost the lead during cautions/pit stops, his car didn’t perform well in traffic and he couldn’t get back up there. He was hanging in a satisfying 6th place spot until lap 150 when he lost a tires, relegating him to a 32nd place finish. I didn’t hear the radio chatter, but my friends said it sounded like he was about to cry. :(
Hang on to it Sadler, you can get back in there.
Mark Martin had a solid performance avoiding trouble, remaining in the top ten the entire day finishing 7th.
I don’t even like JJ (Jimmie Johnson) but that was a hell of a hard hit and some very scary moments on pit road, where were the safety crews? The guy doesn't remember driving his car onto pit road, thank the gods for automatic reflexes.
Dale...Ow. I wrapped up a call just as they were restarting from 4th caution on lap 61 and turned back to the TV just in time to see the 8 car become a racquet ball. As cars speed and then slowed up in front of him, he tried to dart out of line to make some space for the guys behind him, but Skinner was right there, hooking his rear fender and putting him into the inside wall which he bounced off of and into Martin Truex. Jr. The car had been crap to begin with, when he got out of the infield care center, he was far more upset about that than that than the wreck, but what a day.
Kind of like B-laB’s (Bobby Labonte’s), who not only lost his top ten spot, but his car, to a blown tire. Two guys having really crappy seasons.
Dale, wisely, seems to have taken the focus off the Chase for the Championship about 4 races ago. Good for him. Considering everything that is moving around at DEI; Mikey out/not out (with rumors that Ward Burton has been visiting DEI), Truex moving up to the 1, Hmiel’s stint as CC for the #8 being temporary, etc. I think the wisest course of action is simply to treat the rest of season as the test session for next year. Try to get everything right and in place for next season so they can spend the off-season building and testing new cars instead of trying to get everyone settled in. I’m not saying he’s out of the Chase, I’m not saying Dale won’t win a race during the rest of the season, but I think for sanity’s sake this is the wisest way to approach the rest of the year.
Still.
Keep your chin up Dale, bad times don’t last forever. Honest.
But congratulations to Tony Stewart for fulfilling a lifelong dream of winning at his home track. Tony is a racer born and came from open wheel. Winning at Indy is going to be one of the highlights of an already prestigious career. Instead of doing the traditional burn out, Tony did a polish victory lap with tears in his eyes, stopping at his suites and getting out of the car to wave at his most die hard friends, family and fans, then back to the flag stand to climb the fence with his entire team. Best Victory celebration I have ever seen. *applause*
The standings so far with five races left to the Chase for the Nextel Cup.:
Tony Stewart (#20, Home Depot, Chevy)
Jimmie Johnson (#48, Lowes, Chevy)
Greg Biffle (#16, National Guard, Ford)
Rusty Wallace (#2, Miller Lite, Dodge)
Kurt Busch (#97, Sharpie, Crown Royal, Ford)
Mark Martin (#6, Viagra, Ford)
Ryan Newman (#12, Altel, Dodge)
Jeremy Mayfield (#19, Dodge)
Dale Jarrett (#88, UPS, Ford)
Carl Edwards (#99, Office Depot, Ford)
Elliott (#38, M&Ms) is in 12th place, Dale Jr. (#8, Budweiser) is in 16th.
It’s nice to see the veterans up there with the Young Guns. :D
The Ultimate in Cool.
“Guerilla” Artist Gets a Hold of Israel’s Security Wall.
Not only clever and ballsy, but quite funny.
Gods know that area of the world could use a laugh. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could approach such structures of fear and hatred with such irreverence?
Requiescat in Pace
Peter Jennings.
The loss of a truly remarkable journalist and charming man. The respects paid to him by journalists and anchor people of other networks speaks volumes of his impact on the journalism/news media community.
Always Nice to Finish On An “Up” Note.
International Rescue Team Wins Race to Free Sub Crew
Growing up when I did, I lived enough of the Cold War culture that despite our current differenced with the Russia, I can still be very pleasantly surprised to see such stories in the news. People who think believe in the “realist paradigm”, that it’s politically it’s a dog-eat dog world operating at the lowest common moral denominator, can kiss my ass. This is what political progress really is: the recognition that we are all human beings sharing their little planet and that we all have to help one another.
Having watched the Brickyard 400 yesterday, I was yet again astounded at the poor quality of the tires you provided to the race teams. When the race cannot get through 20 to 30 laps without someone’s tires blowing out or cutting down, there is a serious problem. Your representatives complain that race teams crank the camber too far and don’t run proper air pressures, but how long has Goodyear been in racing? You people know exactly what crew chiefs do to tires, so why after all this time can you not come up with a tire that suits their needs? Race fans are tired of the excuses, not only for the record number of cautions poor tires have created this year, but for the risk you are putting the drivers in every time they strap in. Jimmie Johnson’s wreck, fire and black out yesterday showed how serious that risk is. Stop making excuses. Protect these people’s lives.
Until Goodyear can come up with a design and compound that is safer for racecar drivers, I will be boycotting your product. God knows having watched so many of your tires blow out over the course of the season, I hardly feel safe barreling down the 405 for an hour and a half everyday on them.
Sincerely,
KiplingKat/RHYLL/RedGriffin
And yes, I’m sending it.
Due to a lot of phone calls and other distractions, I had to watch the race yesterday in fits and starts. As you can tell from my letter above, it was a tough day for many race teams. Indy was not designed for stock car racing: the track has hardly any banking, is square and narrow. Combine that with really crappy tires and you have a big mess. The first caution happened 23 laps in as the Tide ride’s tire blew, shredding his entire left front fender and things proceeded to go downhill from there. Elliott was incredibly fast off the pole in the beginning and his pit crew was pulling off some great 13.4 second stops. But once he lost the lead during cautions/pit stops, his car didn’t perform well in traffic and he couldn’t get back up there. He was hanging in a satisfying 6th place spot until lap 150 when he lost a tires, relegating him to a 32nd place finish. I didn’t hear the radio chatter, but my friends said it sounded like he was about to cry. :(
Hang on to it Sadler, you can get back in there.
Mark Martin had a solid performance avoiding trouble, remaining in the top ten the entire day finishing 7th.
I don’t even like JJ (Jimmie Johnson) but that was a hell of a hard hit and some very scary moments on pit road, where were the safety crews? The guy doesn't remember driving his car onto pit road, thank the gods for automatic reflexes.
Dale...Ow. I wrapped up a call just as they were restarting from 4th caution on lap 61 and turned back to the TV just in time to see the 8 car become a racquet ball. As cars speed and then slowed up in front of him, he tried to dart out of line to make some space for the guys behind him, but Skinner was right there, hooking his rear fender and putting him into the inside wall which he bounced off of and into Martin Truex. Jr. The car had been crap to begin with, when he got out of the infield care center, he was far more upset about that than that than the wreck, but what a day.
Kind of like B-laB’s (Bobby Labonte’s), who not only lost his top ten spot, but his car, to a blown tire. Two guys having really crappy seasons.
Dale, wisely, seems to have taken the focus off the Chase for the Championship about 4 races ago. Good for him. Considering everything that is moving around at DEI; Mikey out/not out (with rumors that Ward Burton has been visiting DEI), Truex moving up to the 1, Hmiel’s stint as CC for the #8 being temporary, etc. I think the wisest course of action is simply to treat the rest of season as the test session for next year. Try to get everything right and in place for next season so they can spend the off-season building and testing new cars instead of trying to get everyone settled in. I’m not saying he’s out of the Chase, I’m not saying Dale won’t win a race during the rest of the season, but I think for sanity’s sake this is the wisest way to approach the rest of the year.
Still.
Keep your chin up Dale, bad times don’t last forever. Honest.
But congratulations to Tony Stewart for fulfilling a lifelong dream of winning at his home track. Tony is a racer born and came from open wheel. Winning at Indy is going to be one of the highlights of an already prestigious career. Instead of doing the traditional burn out, Tony did a polish victory lap with tears in his eyes, stopping at his suites and getting out of the car to wave at his most die hard friends, family and fans, then back to the flag stand to climb the fence with his entire team. Best Victory celebration I have ever seen. *applause*
The standings so far with five races left to the Chase for the Nextel Cup.:
Tony Stewart (#20, Home Depot, Chevy)
Jimmie Johnson (#48, Lowes, Chevy)
Greg Biffle (#16, National Guard, Ford)
Rusty Wallace (#2, Miller Lite, Dodge)
Kurt Busch (#97, Sharpie, Crown Royal, Ford)
Mark Martin (#6, Viagra, Ford)
Ryan Newman (#12, Altel, Dodge)
Jeremy Mayfield (#19, Dodge)
Dale Jarrett (#88, UPS, Ford)
Carl Edwards (#99, Office Depot, Ford)
Elliott (#38, M&Ms) is in 12th place, Dale Jr. (#8, Budweiser) is in 16th.
It’s nice to see the veterans up there with the Young Guns. :D
The Ultimate in Cool.
“Guerilla” Artist Gets a Hold of Israel’s Security Wall.
Not only clever and ballsy, but quite funny.
Gods know that area of the world could use a laugh. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone could approach such structures of fear and hatred with such irreverence?
Requiescat in Pace
Peter Jennings.
The loss of a truly remarkable journalist and charming man. The respects paid to him by journalists and anchor people of other networks speaks volumes of his impact on the journalism/news media community.
Always Nice to Finish On An “Up” Note.
International Rescue Team Wins Race to Free Sub Crew
Growing up when I did, I lived enough of the Cold War culture that despite our current differenced with the Russia, I can still be very pleasantly surprised to see such stories in the news. People who think believe in the “realist paradigm”, that it’s politically it’s a dog-eat dog world operating at the lowest common moral denominator, can kiss my ass. This is what political progress really is: the recognition that we are all human beings sharing their little planet and that we all have to help one another.
posted by KiplingKat | 3:52 PM
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