From Tire Review Staff & Wire Reports
AKRON, OHIO — Delamination problems caused Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. to pull 900 race tires from its inventory for this weekend’s Daytona 500.
The company made the decision Feb. 17, according to NASCAR.com reports, after a number of race tires lost their tread during practice sessions leading up to the NEXTEL Cup event.
Goodyear originally pulled 300 tires from its stock before the Budweiser Shootout event, but expanded it to 900 total tires after discovering “a minor manufacturing problem,” according to the reports. Using a company plane, Goodyear shipped a sample of tires back to its Akron, Ohio, research center for testing Wednesday.
The company said that tread delamination had occurred in a small sample of tires, and that the problems experienced by some race teams were not necessarily caused by the tires.
“It is chassis-sensitive and heat-sensitive, but since we do know there is a slightly lower level of adhesion in that grouping, we want to do everything we can to provide the best product we can,” Stu Grant, Goodyear’s general manager of global race tires, was quoted in the NASCAR.com reports. “We met with NASCAR at 7 o’clock this morning after we got our data and told them what we were going to do, explained our results.
“There was a slightly lower level of adhesion between the tread and the top fabric ply on the tires that experienced problems when you compare them to other tires that specific production run,” Grant said, who noted that the majority of the tires were not affected, and most problems were “isolated and aggravated by a pushing or loose car.”
Goodyear said testing in Akron was done on samples of tires that had problems, some from the same lot that experienced no problems, and tires that had not been used as of yet. In a NASCAR.com report, Grant said the company was not 100 percent sure what caused the problem, but that Goodyear would get to the bottom of the matter.
Grant stated that Goodyear would have plenty of tires on hand for this weekend’s events, and that the delamination problems did not affect tires for the Busch Series or Craftsman Truck Series events.
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