Tony Stewart pissed about Goodyear’s exploding tires
"I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it for one minute," Newman said after being told of Grant’s explanation. “I know what a puncture feels like and this didn’t fell like that. I started to feel it come apart."
Grant said that he would talk to Stewart to try and explain the situation to him personally, but Stewart may not be in a forgiving mood should Goodyear officials try to meet with him. [Yeah right, like the puncture did not happen from all the debris from the wreck that happened after the tire exploded.]
“Don’t get them anywhere near me," Stewart said while his crew prepared the backup cars behind him. “Don’t bring them anywhere close; don’t let them come close. I don’t want anything to do with them."
02/15/09 The right-rear tire that blew on Ryan Newman's car during practice and caused a wreck that took out his teammate, Tony Stewart, as well was the result of a puncture and not a shoddy tire, a Goodyear official said.
"At this point the evidence would be a classic case of a punctured tire," said Stu Grant, general manager of worldwide racing for Goodyear. "You can see a clear puncture mark through the tread and the belt package."
Stewart, however, is beyond angry at the company.
"I'm ticked right now. I'm not happy. I'm not cordial. I'm not nice. I'm not anything right now and I shouldn't be," he said. "If it was because two guys wrecked and it was a driver's mistake that's one thing," he said. "But a manufacturer that has the sole deal here; they don't have any competition and they can't give us something to keep us from having problems like this. So I don't know. I'm just amazed at how much everybody kisses their (rear ends) right now. I'm just tired of talking about them," he said. "Tired of them being an issue. And us talking about them right now isn't going to change anything because it falls on deaf ears and that won't change."
Grant said he understood Stewart's frustrations and that he planned to talk to him about the matter.
"Tony is a passionate race driver and he is extremely frustrated right now," Grant said. "And I think that's what you hear in his comments."
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| Tony Stewart has had it with Goodyear's exploding tires |
02/14/09 A relatively and unusually calm Speedweeks exploded in controversy Saturday at the very moment Ryan Newman's right-rear tire did the same, resulting in an accident that forced both Newman and his owner/driver teammate Tony Stewart into backup cars for Sunday's Daytona 500.
“It's the same stuff that we always talk about every year — the failures that Goodyear has." Stewart, owner of Newman's No. 39 Chevrolet as well as his own No. 14 Chevy for Stewart-Haas Racing, was livid with Goodyear for what he claims are faulty tires that have been issued to Sprint Cup teams for the season-opening race. It wasn't the first time Stewart has blasted Goodyear for bringing bad tires to a race, as he did so last year at events in Atlanta and Indianapolis.
But this time, as he experienced his first tire blowout and blowup as a car owner, Stewart seemed even hotter than usual.
"It's just a Goodyear right-rear tire," Stewart said. "So it's the same thing everybody has been talking about all week. It's the same stuff that we always talk about every year — the failures that Goodyear has. I think that's part of their marketing campaign. The more we talk about it, the more press they get. I think they forget that it's supposed to be in a good way, not a bad way." More at NASCAR.com