Goodyear tire engineers can take a bow -- a great new tire at Las Vegas!

  

  
You want tires. We got tires. And Goodyear had some really good ones at Las Vegas (Photo: Getty Images for NASCAR)

  

   By Mike Mulhern
   mikemulhern.net


   ATLANTA
   Stu Grant, Goodyear's racing boss, really took it on the chin last season, and he stoically accepted drivers' complaints of rock-hard tires or fast-wearing tires…and vowed to do better this year.
   And judging from what drivers and crews saw at Las Vegas Motor Speedway last weekend, Grant and Goodyear have hit a homerun with one of their newest tire designs.
   Even some of the harshest critics are giving Goodyear rave reviews for their Las Vegas tires.
   That particular design, though, probably won't be used again until Charlotte in May.
   The smile on Grant's face here can be seen all the way across the NASCAR garage.
   And that's in sharp contrast to the situation here one year ago, when Tony Stewart, after running 500 miles on a rock-hard design, ripped the tire maker in no uncertain terms.
   "A couple of things have happened," Grant says.
   "First, the learning curve on this car-of-tomorrow has evened out. We're not on that steep upward learning curve like we were battling last year and in 2007. As those guys learn the car, and as we anticipate where to go, it was a tough challenge to stay ahead of it…or rather to figure out exactly where it was going to be and when it was going to be there, spot-on – you test and then you race three months later, that whole thing.
   "These guys are always going to keep making progress, but we're not on the steep learning as we were when they first brought the car out.
   "Second, we've been very aggressive on our test programs. We tested at Las Vegas in December. We tested at Texas, Phoenix, we've got a test coming up at Darlington, a test coming up at Charlotte. We tested again here for this race."
   The new Las Vegas tire, Grant says, looks like a breakthrough.
   "Las Vegas is without a doubt the toughest race track we have, because it is so fast and you carry so much load on the right-side," Grant said. "The right-front sees more load than anywhere else we go: more than even Daytona or Texas or Charlotte.
   "We had a brand new tire for Las Vegas, and I have to say it worked fantastic. We didn't see any wear issues, or any heat issues, or any durability issues.
   "It was just a really, really solid tire. It was a construction change, and now that it's worked at Las Vegas we're going to use a similar setup at other tracks, the next one probably Charlotte."
   In fact the new Goodyears at Las Vegas were so good some crew chiefs and drivers and owners said it was almost too good – that it was faster and better than they anticipated, and that led to engine failures.