Are teams in the Sprint Cup Series tampering with tires?
After the following two Sprint Cup Series races – at Phoenix and Auto Club – NASCAR has taken tires for review. On Friday, crew chiefs Alan Gustafson and Chad Knaus said they were told by the sanctioning body that any tampering with tires would be met with stiff penalties.
“I don’t want to say warned,” Gustafson, Jeff Gordon’s crew chief, said. “Warned may not be the right term, just reminded.”
What could the issues be? Apparently there’s talk that teams have been drilling tiny holes in the tires. The holes would allow air to bleed, ever so slowly, to keep tire pressures lower throughout the duration of a tire stint (as heat builds in the tires, air pressures increase).
“In my experience there is a lot of smoke around that,” Gustafson said. “There is a lot of talk, there is a lot of dialogue and there are a lot of rumors in the garage. Yeah, I think it is obvious that some people think something is going on and is NASCAR reacting to that? Or do they feel uncomfortable with what is going on? I don’t know that answer. But I do think that it is something that is on the forefront of a lot of people minds. Obviously NASCAR is trying to make sure that we are all on level playing field and if anybody is violating that they will pay the price, which they reminded us this morning is very stiff. That is all I know.”
Per USA Today, the focal point have been the teams of Kevin Harvick and Kurt Busch as well as Richard Childress Racing cars. Harvick has won two races this season. Busch has been fast since his return and RCR’s Ryan Newman is showing speed similar to his Chase run in 2014 when he finished second to Harvick in the standings.
Gordon said he thinks teams were manipulating tires.
“Yeah, I do,” Gordon said. “I do think they are. When it gets to this level and when you’re hearing about it and I’m hearing about it and they are talking about things in meetings with crew chiefs – that tells me that it’s being done. It’s just not clear on how it’s being done.”
It’s important to note that no teams have been penalized for any tire shenanigans so far this season. The tires of Joey Logano and Harvick’s cars at Phoenix showed no issues. Any results of an independent review of tires taken at ACS from Harvick, Busch, Menard and Newman haven’t been released yet.
If teams were drilling holes in their tires, it’d be possible (and smart) to drill them small enough to make detection incredibly hard. And, of course, teams would have to be doing the drilling in a secretive enough area to make sure that no one saw what was going on.
I don’t think – I know NASCAR sat down all the crew chiefs last year in Phoenix and told them to stop doing it,” Denny Hamlin said. “My guess is that if they said stop then they’ve seen something. If it’s out there and they know about it, you should be gone forever. That’s a major, major thing and this isn’t like the old rodeo days of being able to go out there and run a big motor or soak the tires – this is a professional sport and people alter tires — that’s a big, big deal. Definitely no room for it in the sport, that’s for sure.
Knaus, Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief, said he didn’t know what was going on. However he said he sent a (joking) text to Sprint Cup Series director Richard Buck if he could poke holes in his tires.
“I really don’t,” Knaus said. “I know I sent Richard Buck a text and said ‘hey man could we poke holes in our tires is that okay?’ He sent me a text back and said ‘absolutely not’. So that is all I know.”
Gustafson wondered about bleeders for the tires. Bleeders could be approved by NASCAR and achieve the same objective that drilling holes in tires could do.
“So yeah, I do think that is something that NASCAR could look at and it is something that really it could potentially help the durability of the tire also because you would start higher on pressure and lower on pressure and kind of stay within that optimum operating condition of that tire,” Gustafson said. ” … I think that is the thing that is going to be tough for NASCAR is that if this is going on as rumored it is a very difficult thing to police. The way to police it may be to just allow it through a more conventional tool like a bleeder.”
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
