Kyle Busch drove his No. 18 Toyota Camry to a white-green checkered victory Sunday after tire failures plagued the majority of the NASCAR Sprint Cup field at the Auto Club Speedway 400 in Fontana, CA.
Busch was the first driver on four fresh tires after a restart on Lap 205 of the race. Busch passed his older brother, Kurt Busch, as well as Tony Stewart on the second last lap of the race and held off a determined Kyle Larson for the win. Larson crossed the line .214 seconds behind Busch in his No. 42 Chevrolet SS, with the second Busch finishing a close third in the No. 41 Chevrolet SS.
Four yellow flags were called for drivers who suffered blowouts from the track’s unusually rough and bumpy surface, shuffling up the standings several times throughout the course of the race. There were several more blowouts which didn’t prompt a caution flag, including Jimmie Johnson, who was leading until his front left tire suffered a blow out with only six laps to go. This handed the lead over to Team Chevy driver Jeff Gordon, who was in first when another yellow flag was put out, prompting an array of different pit strategies from the teams, which ultimately put Gordon in 13th position.
“It is just so disappointing,” Gordon said after the race. “I hate Goodyear was not prepared for what happened. They are so good at what they do, and that is just uncalled for. When I saw (Johnson) had issues I was just hoping we would make it to the end, and I was just going as slow as I possibly could trying to maintain the lead and cars were just blowing tires left and right all around me. It’s unfortunate that was happening.”
The tire failures are being chalked up to an extremely rough track surface which hasn’t been repaved since Auto Club Speedway opened in 1997, and increased downforce from the generation-six stock cars, which on average produce about 500-600 pounds more downforce than the outgoing cars.
A blowout due to the rough surface during practice on Saturday is what ultimately led Kyle Busch to victory. He said after the blowout, his team went conservative on their suspension and aerodynamics setups to help preserve the tires.
“We were lucky, we had our tire problem with two minutes to go in practice yesterday, and that allowed us to go into a conservative approach overnight,” Busch said. “I’m glad that we had that. Sometimes it’s a blessing in disguise to blow a tire and to not pay a penalty by spinning and wrecking your primary car.”
Team Chevy cars accounted for six of the top ten positions at the Auto Club Speedway 400, including a fifth place finish from Tony Stewart and a sixth place finish from Jamie McMurray, putting Chevrolet further ahead in the manufacturers standings.
Other Team Chevy drivers, including fan favorite Danica Patrick, weren’t quite as lucky. Patrick started 27th and battled her way into a top-20 position when she suffered a front-left tire blowout on lap 139. However a yellow flag on lap 141 gave her the opportunity to edge her way back into the top 20, leading to a 14th place finish overall, the best of the season so far for the No. 10 GoDaddy Chevrolet SS.
Team Chevy and the rest of the NASCAR drivers will be looking for a more consistent race during the next leg of the 2014 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the STP 500 at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia on March 30.
Comments
It looks like Goodyear’s engineers are learning their skills by trial and error. It would have been nice to see a NASCAR race outcome based on driver and crew’s skill with a race prepared car instead of the abilities of a tire. Goodyear tests at these tracks, have they learned nothing? Neither am I a fan of the green-white-checker. It turns out to be a two lap race with a lot of entertainment before hand. I would rather see a 10 lap shoot out reset for a first yellow within the last 10 laps, 5 lap shoot out for the second yellow, 3 lap shoot out for the third yellow, then the green-white-checker as a last resort. But…………they didn’t ask me.
There is a lot more to it than this.
First off the two toughest tires to build in racing are NASCAR tires and Top Fuel slicks. The guy that told me this was the guy who got Firestone back into racing and chose Indy car. He said they did computer test on loading and other parameters and decided after what Hoosier went through they would be better off in Indy.
The NASCAR tires are tough to build. Teams want maximum grip with some wild chassis settings. NASCAR wants pit stops every 30-40 laps. Goodyear has to take evolving cars and try to make both happy. Even if they test often in the off season the temps are lower and often skew results.
California has several factors going. One was the temps were higher than normal for this time of year. Two they had new cars with more down force. Three teams were doing things they were told not to do but they still do it. I have a buddy who works for Timken Bearing and they have had issues with crew chiefs pushing things more than they should too and they get bearing failures.
Goodyear could easily make a tire with decent grip and last the entire race but that is not what both sides want. Generally they get it right but once in a while the temps can be up or with a new car other factors come into play.
I expect few teams wanted to go to California and test in the off season when so many were already behind on their new cars.
The drivers get mad but they know what is in play and the next race they will be over it.
With cars this heavy drivers at times have to race to save tires as they have for years. That is just part of racing.
I just hated it because the Shrub won. I hate the Shrub.
Larson is the real deal and you hear a lot from him as time goes on. I just worried his car would not be up to his level but it looks good so far. I met him last year and he is a good kid. He reminds me of Gordon years ago.