Full Throttle

Think again.

During the long and acrimonious strike at Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. speculation was NASCAR may have to resort to the use of Hoosier tires for part, if not all of the 2007 season.

That near “crisis” passed a few weeks ago when Goodyear and the Steel Workers Union settled their contract dispute.

But that isn’t the end of tire issues. Last year for the first time NASCAR with assistance of Goodyear started a tire leasing program. Teams leased them at each event then returned both those used and any unused tires to Goodyear.

The object, to save the teams money on testing. Most teams circumvented the policy last year by use of tires already purchased.

Going into the new year at least two teams, DEI and Joe Gibbs, have exhausted their supply on hand. But that won’t stop them from spending cash on additional testing. Their checks are just being written payable to Hoosier

A DEI executive confirmed Monday that organization’s stockpile was almost gone. In fact, it was low enough that at least one of the their teams testing at USA International Speedway later this week would do so on Hoosier tires.

“It’s working,” said the executive of NASCAR’s desire to reduce the amount of testing teams could do away from the official tests. “The lack of tires has forced us to rethink how we test and what we test.

“At Lakeland we won’t be able to compare one car against another. We’ll look more to establish a baseline and then gauge our improvement based on the incremental speeds after each change. How that will relate to a race set-up we just don’t know yet.”

Jimmy Makar, of Joe Gibbs Racing, confirmed their organization was nearly out of tires and expected they would soon turn to Hoosier for testing tires.

“Hoosier,” Makar admitted. “You’ve got to having something to test with and the make of the tire isn’t critical unless you are looking for a setup. If your just testing a new part or piece than using the Hoosier won’t be an issue. However, I would be very reluctant to base any type of racing setup on a test with anything other than Goodyear.”

It’s “working?”

How’s that? NASCAR has mandated 7 tests, USA International Speedway in Lakeland where DEI tests later this week isn’t one of them.

Can you spell - l a w o f u n i n t e n d e d c o n s e q u e n c e s?

Or better yet, spell - f a i l e d p o l i c y.

AGAIN!

NASCAR, NEXTEL Cup, Goodyear, Sports, Auto Racing, Motorsports, Full Throttle