Bridgestone-Firestone preparing to blow Goodyear out

After years of enduring millions of dollars in equipment damage due to blown Goodyear race tires, will NASCAR finally put an end to their misery and switch to another brand? Only time will tell, but it appears Bridgestone's USA arm, Firestone, are getting ready to bid against Goodyear as the tire of choice in stock car racing.

Robin Miller reports on SPEEDTV.com that Scott Pruett was testing one of Chip Ganassi's ARCA stock cars this week on the road course at Homestead-Miami Speedway on Firestone tires.

"It was not a Firestone test and it was not a NASCAR test, it was a technical exercise to try and develop current stock car technology," said Al Speyer, executive director of Firestone/Bridgestone motorsports.

"It was a brandless program. There was no name on the tires or the uniforms or even the tire machines. And the car was painted gray. We were just trying to be as low key as possible."

"We were quite encouraged," he said. "We ran a lot of different constructions and compounds and we learned a ton. Like I said, this environment is so much different than Indy cars.

"We used the road course because the natural progression is to start out with an easier application and work our way up to a super speedway. We've got things started, we'll gather our results and we'll continue testing in 2009."

Goodyear's exclusive contract with NASCAR ends in 2011. Look for Firestone to be prepared to blow Goodyear right out of the sport.

Recall when the Corvette team switched from Goodyear rubber to Michelin at LeMans their lap times dropped 7 seconds (per lap). Enough said. Likewise, NASCAR will be easy pick'ens for Firestone.

This past Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis was Goodyear's darkest day as tires only lasted 10-12 laps and the race was a fiasco of mandatory yellows and pit stops to try and avoid accidents. It will be a day few in NASCAR will ever forget.

Order the flowers and plan the funeral….Goodyear's that is.