RacingWin

NASCAR Apologizes for Indy Tire Disaster

NASCAR issued an official apology to fans today for what happened in Sunday’s race in Indianapolis.

Tire problems turned what was supposed to be a 160 lap race into a series of heat races. The longest green flag segment was 13 laps.

Robin Pemberton, NASCAR’s Vice President of Competition, spoke today about the tire debacle.

Pemberton said that NASCAR officials had met with Goodyear on Tuesday, and both parties are doing everything they can to determine the cause of the problem — and to make sure it does not happen again.

“You know, I can’t say enough how sorry we are, and you know, it’s our responsibility being NASCAR that we don’t go through this situation again. We’ve already got after it, and we’re moving forward with a plan to get ahead of the situation so we don’t go through this again,” said Pemberton.

“Once again, you know, I think it deserves to be said that the race didn’t come off like we had hoped. The fans didn’t get what they exactly wanted, and we’ll do everything in our power and it won’t happen again, I can tell you that much. So we’re going to put a lot of effort towards it and get a better plan moving forward.”

“I just want to let everybody know and get ahead of that and try to put this behind us and we’ll work hard, all us that are involved at Indianapolis - from the tire manufacturer to NASCAR, to Indianapolis Motor Speedway.”

NASCAR has received much criticism for not having a full field test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The only testing done at the speedway with the new car of tomorrow was a 3 car tire test - which obviously did not provide enough information as to how this new car and tire would react on the Indy racing surface.

Tires which normally marbled and wore into the track’s surface instead disintegrated into a fine powder.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway President Tony George has stated that there was nothing wrong with the race track, and that no changes would be made to the racing surface for next year’s event.

George seemed to be telling NASCAR that this was his speedway - and if NASCAR didn’t like it they could race elsewhere.

However, Pemberton went out of his way to deflect that comment.

“Well, I didn’t get a chance to see that comment, said Pemberton. “It’s obvious that we don’t go there with the right car/tire combination. We raced them on that surface the last four years and realized we wouldn’t ask them to change that surface. We’ve got to do a better job.”

“I didn’t read Tony’s comments. A few of the people have told me what they were. You know, we haven’t asked the Speedway to make any such changes. We’re just going to move forward and do a better job leading into the race when we get there next year.”

When he was asked how he felt about the show NASCAR put on at Indy on a personal level, Pemberton responded, “I don’t feel real good about it right now. I think if you had talked to anybody that’s been around me the last 48 hours; they’ll probably back me up on that. It’s difficult, it’s hard. We do beat ourselves up.”

“But, you know, that’s what makes us one of the best Motorsports in the entire world. We take it personal. When we see things we know we can fix, we’re going to go fix them. That’s what we’re going to set out to do. We’re going to put this behind us. When we go back to Indianapolis next year, we’ll probably have the best brickyard race we’ve ever had.”

I think we should accept NASCAR’s apology and let’s get on with racing. What do you think?