Less than an hour after Tony Stewart ripped Goodyear for poor tire performance, a representative from Goodyear came into the Daytona Media Center to defend the company’s honor and shoot down speculation that this year’s Daytona 500 will be fraught with tire failures.
It’s no secret that Tony Stewart has a ‘love/hate” relationship with Goodyear. That’s right, he loves to hate them. And that hate intensified after Ryan Newman blew a tire in final practice for the Daytona 500 and collected Stewart on the ensuing slide up into the outside wall. Stewart said the issue was with Goodyear’s tires and then gave the company a wicked tongue-lashing.
Not having any of it, Goodyear’s Stu Grant, General Manager of Worldwide Racing, told the media that Newman’s blown tire was not related to substandard construction.
“We know that the tires had 12 laps on it. We know that it show no evidence of any type of wear, it shows no evidence of any type of blistering. And it showed no evidence of any type of abuse,” Grant said. “What we did see is a clear hole through the tread and both belts in the pieces that we took off the car. So, at this time the evidence makes us think that this would be a classic case of a clearly punctured right rear.”
Neither Stewart nor his representatives were immediately available to respond to Goodyear’s assertions because Stewart was preparing for the Nationwide Series Camping World 300.
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