NASCAR Daily News Headlines * March 14, 2008

Qualifying Rained Out

Atlanta Ratings Up 21%

The Daily also reports that Speed says its coverage of Friday's Craftsman Truck Series American Commercial Lines 200 from Atlanta earned a 1.05 coverage rating, an increase of 31.3 percent from a 0.80 last year. This year's race was viewed by 753,000 households, up from 565,000 last year.(scenedaily.com)

Stewart Probably Won't Be Invited To Tire Test

“Tony was invited to the Las Vegas tire test in December because he was very vocal about his displeasure with the Las Vegas race track and our tire recommendation previously,” Greg Stucker, Goodyear director of race tire sales, said Friday morning at Bristol Motor Speedway. “We said, ‘Hey, we understand that, so we want you to be involved in this test.’

“He was there, but I would say he probably really wasn’t involved. He wasn’t into it … If he’s not going to be more constructive than he has been recently or was at that test, no, he won’t get another test. We look for people that want to be engaged, that provide us with feedback, to be there to do what we need.”

Stewart was joined by Jeff Burton, Kasey Kahne and Matt Kenseth at the Vegas test last year. “Tony made it very clear that he would have [rather] been someplace else and he really wasn’t very cooperative as far as giving us feedback,” Stucker said. Stewart admits that he wasn’t happy to be at a tire test in December when he’d just finished a grueling season and a postseason celebration in New York.

“I didn’t want to be there,” he said Friday at Atlanta Motor Speedway. “It was December. We had a long year. That’s the facts of it. I didn’t want to be in Vegas. I had to go out the day before, and we stayed two days to tire-test. It was clear after the banquet. It was into our holiday season. “That was three days I would have rather spent with my friends and family that I don’t get a chance to see enough anyway. I actually had something else planned that I wanted to go do and had to cancel it because of the test.

Stewart admits that he’s not a big fan of participating in a tire test, anyway. Asked if it wasn’t his job to give his best effort in that situation, he responded, “I don’t work for Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.”(scenedaily.com)

Rain A Threat Again

The good news is that Bristol Motor Speedway is a .533-mile concrete oval and tends to dry fairly quickly, normally drying within 90 minutes or less. Temperatures are expected in the 60s today and Saturday and the low 50s on Sunday. Sprint Cup practice is scheduled from noon-1:30 p.m. EDT today with qualifying at 3:40 p.m.

If qualifying is canceled because of rain, the three drivers who would miss the race would be Front Row Motorsports’ John Andretti, Gillett Evernham Motorsports’ Patrick Carpentier and Wood Brothers Racing's Jeff Green. Nationwide teams have practices scheduled for 1:40-3:15 p.m. and 4:45-5:45 p.m. EDT. Qualifying is not scheduled until Saturday morning.(scenedaily.com)

Green In For Elliott This Week

“As we’ve done with Bill ever since we started this arrangement, I call him every week before finalizing our entry blank and ask him if he still wants to race for the coming week,” team co-owner Eddie Wood said. “When I spoke to Bill on Monday, he showed an interest in swapping out Bristol for Martinsville, so that’s what we did. Jeff Green has a good record here, and we thought putting him in the car would give us our best shot at qualifying on speed.

“I think what he’s done in practice here today shows that we made a good decision. Unfortunately, when I saw the weather forecast, I figured this was going to happen. I guess the most appropriate thing to say right now is that when it rains, it pours. This sort of typifies the way our season has gone so far.”(scenedaily.com)

Pemberton Understands Tire Woes

“When you look at, it’s safe to say, and everyone has said, ‘OK, the tire was ultraconservative,’ and there are some that complained more than others, and there are some that didn’t complain but maybe had the same feelings,” Pemberton said Friday morning at Bristol Motor Speedway, site of this Sunday's Food City 500. “With the recent history at Atlanta, with tires wearing out and issues there, the most important thing was to go back there and not have a tire issue from a safety standpoint, and that wound up being what happened. That was the goal, and that’s what they achieved. Once you got in competition, the drivers didn’t like the lack of grip, and so Goodyear realizes that, and they’re going to go back, and they’ll test for a different tire combination there.”

Pemberton said safety concerns are the leading consideration when choosing a tire for a track, “bar none.” Still, he sees the point made by Dale Earnhardt Jr., who said after last week’s race that he felt there was a tire somewhere between one that had issues with cords showing and one that was so hard that drivers couldn’t race with it.

“There’s a balance in there somewhere, and it also goes back to, you hear a lot of talk about testing, this, that and the other,” he said. “You’ve got to have the best drivers and teams you can test tires. You can’t have guys that don’t stand on the gas test tires, you can’t have retired guys test tires, because they’re not going to get the most out of it. People who haven’t been tire testing or haven’t raced for a living can oversimplify that and say, 'Just go get a test team and a guy who’s off a different series and test.'

“There’s a reason they’re not in this level. You need guys at this level that know what they need and even guys at this Cup level that aren’t at the top of their game or the top of the heap, they can’t always give you the right tire, and I think having a guy at the Darlington test like Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle, I think you’re going to get the best test out of your tire that you can.”

Clearly, Tony Stewart offered the most comprehensive comments after last week’s race, questioning both the tire manufacturer and the process for selecting those tires.

Pemberton said he didn’t care to get into Tony Stewart’s comments about the tire manufacturer following last weekend’s race at Atlanta, but he didn’t question Goodyear’s tire testing process. NASCAR is comfortable with having two teams participate in each test session, such as happened at Darlington with Gordon and Biffle. Newman was also on hand for that session, but officials say he was testing load limits on the car at the track and not various tires as Gordon and Biffle were.(scenedaily.com)