Bridgestone Cleveland preview

Race Details: Timed event – 1 hour, 45 minutes. Track distance is 2.106 miles (3.389 kilometers).

Television Broadcast: Live – Sunday, June 24, at 1 p.m. EDT on CBS.

Bridgestone Potenza Tires Supplied:
* 546 primary (black-sidewall) dry-condition slicks; 174 alternate (red-sidewall) dry slicks; and 452 wet-condition (rain) tires.
* Each car receives seven sets of primary tires, two sets of alternates and four sets of rain tires for the race weekend.
* In a normal dry-condition race, each car must use at least one set of primary and one set of alternate Potenzas. The primary and alternate tires' construction is identical, but the alternates possess a tread compound with better grip ("softer"), making them faster but possibly not quite as durable.
* Bridgestone Motorsport engineers elected to bring the same specification of primary and alternate tires as was used at Cleveland in 2006. The primary tires represent the medium-grip road-course Potenzas available, while the alternate spec represents the softer, higher-grip road-course compound. For reference, the alternate spec this weekend served as the primary spec two weeks ago in Portland. Bridgestone is also introducing a new wet-condition tire this weekend, should the need arise. The updated modification replaces the previous more durable ("harder") of the two rain specs.

From Al Speyer, Executive Director, Bridgestone Motorsport: "Cleveland is one of our most important races, with the great Bridgestone race tires developed and produced nearby at our Akron Technical Center and Bridgestone continuing a tradition serving as Official Tire of the event. We'll entertain a thousand teammates on race day, with many from the Tech Center, from our own credit card company in suburban Brook Park and from many of the fine Bridgestone retailers in the Cleveland/Akron area. They're usually treated to a most entertaining race on the wide-open Cleveland course. The airport circuit can be very tough on tires, but the Potenzas we used here in 2006 responded quite well and we're confident bringing back the identical tire specs for this year will make for another exciting race weekend."