Post Florida Update

Well Florida racing is in the books, and while some things change much remains the same. Saw the Goodyear tires first hand, saw some format changes, spoke with a ton of people both at the track and at the Promoters Convention, and basically froze as this was by far the longest streak of bad FL weather I ever experienced. For those that have never been to Volusia, it's definitely one of the fastest tracks sprint cars race on. Mid 130's for an average, Johnny Gibson told me that only Eldora & Rolling Wheels NY have faster averages. Combine FL sand to the highspeeds and throw on a wing for some added down force and it's definitely a tough test for equipment, and tires. There is definitely a learning curve with the new Goodyears, though NOT as much as I personally anticipated. The fast teams were still fast! There were 2 nights of testing offered to those interested at Ocala prior to the FL opener, about 1/3 of the teams participated. Fast night at the Ocala FL opener sanctioned by the All-Stars was set by McCarl. He nor Volusia opener fast timer Dollansky tested, they both set quick time right out of the box. All the tracks provided different conditions each night, from very wet and heavy where speeds were frightening fast, to dry slick. From a fans perspective I don't think anyone could tell the difference from last year. Teams that had instant success seemed to think that while the tires have different characteristics they were fine. Teams that struggled seemed to miss it bad and those were the teams that either guessed wrong on compound or just couldn't get hooked up. Those teams were the ones that seemed to blister or hurt tires more. Volusia is hard on tires and without question all the tires showed wear, but the cars upfront had nice even wear and the cars worked either high or low. The ones that blistered tires simply had too much wheel spin. I saw 100's come off Jason Meyers car that looked great compared to a 200 LR - 300 RR combo on a back A-main running PA car. A 100 is supposed to be slightly harder than a SC12, a 200 a little harder than a 15, and a 300 is more like a 25. The week ended at East Bay which I compare more to tracks we run on, though still more sandy. Tire wear was a non-issue at East Bay. Plenty of block and tire left following the feature. As stated on our forum in another post, there were a few flats at Volusia. However only 1 has been attributed to a quality issue and that tire has been sent back to Akron OH to be evaluated. It came of Meyers car. Haud and a few others had LR blow, though those were caused by cut allowing air pressure to drop and tire building up to much heat. I spoke with those teams and they confirmed what Goodyear told me, not a Goodyear issue. I also noticed most teams were not siping or anything, just ran as they bought them from tire truck. There is definitely a learning curve, and repeatibility is still an overall unknown. Yes WoO teams qualified, heated, and dashed on same tire without problem.... though track surface didn't leave much of a tire left after feature, not to mention those teams would never run those again anyway. I was hoping East Bay would provide that knowledge however they rained out second night, and final night was colded out by promoter. E-mailed with McCarl yesterday, he confirmed tire wear at East Bay was just fine and that you really can't go by FL, so he was saving judgement. There was very little crashing at Volusia, and I checked at East Bay following a strange looking Dale Blaney crash to confirm it was not tire related, and that is fact, it was not, something else broke. So in closing, despite a scary fast abrasive half-mile and a highspeed third-mile more similar to what we run on, there were zero incidents caused by tires. Again, these tires were designed with stiffer sidewall etc to be different. Lastly, the tires used in FL were so new that they had no time to cure. In speaking with Goodyear (they had several engineers there) they were quite pleased with initial outing from a quality standpoint. What I can say is that the races were good, plenty of multi-lane racing and passing. Cars looked plenty fast to me. There is still plenty of racing across the country that starts prior to us, and much more to learn. Most cars had 4 corner Goodyears. Initially the WoO only wanted 3 LR size choices, a 93, 95, 97. I can tell you that a 91 is being built and will be available prior to our opener. Also in FL a 200 was softest front, a 100 will be available soon also. The fronts are different, they are not flat like a Hoosier, but more round on top. The over-whelming majority of cars had 4 corner Goodyears. While things are going to feel different to many, I don't expect all teams to be happy initially. Many weren't when we went with the SC. Some FL teams stated the car feels more stable, though acknowledging that they do slow down. What I can say is that I saw plenty of wheel to wheel racing. But what needs to be remembered is that they are not designed to feel the same as to what we're used to, and that we're all in this together.