By Patty Kay

May 3, 2003

I bid you welcome, gentle readers. On the Sunday of the race at Darlington, Michelin Tire Co. purchased a large quantity of advertising time during the race. That fact, along with rumors of financial difficulties at Goodyear, sparked a great deal of talk in the garage area of an impending "tire war" between those two companies. NASCAR Director of Operations, John Darby, refers to the speculation as "Just garage gossip," but many times that gossip has its base in fact. For those of you who are not familiar with a tire war, it refers to the presence of two or more tire manufacturers supplying tires to the combatants of the same racing series.

At first blush, one would think that in our capitalistic society, this would be a good thing. Indeed, if we were talking only of pricing it probably would be, but in racing, there is far more at stake than the mere cost of a set of tires. For those of you who have never seen the outcome of this particular type of competition, or those who have mercifully forgotten, let me take you back for a moment and describe just what a tire war might accomplish.

In the very beginning of NASCAR stock car racing, the only “racing” tire available was from Firestone Tire & Rubber Co., which had been the supplier of tires for Indianapolis Motor Speedway for years. However, in the beginning, Firestone didn’t show much interest in the new racing series called NASCAR, so the early drivers were left to run pretty much on street tires that were ill suited to the high speeds. It didn’t take very long for someone to discover that these tires were not sufficient or safe on the large, weighty stock cars. Johnny Mantz, who had cut his teeth at the Brickyard, knew instinctively what it would take, and with nothing else available, went out and purchased several sets of truck tires for his 1950 Plymouth. Mantz was the slowest qualifier in the field of 75 at Darlington in 1950, but due to the hardness of his tires, he finished nine laps ahead of the field, as competitors suffered blowout after blowout in the first 500-mile race ever run by stock cars.

By 1955, Firestone came out with a “Super Sports” tire that was not unlike a truck tire, and Herb Thomas won the Southern 500 that year without a tire change. Goodyear entered the picture briefly in 1957 when Jack Smith won a 100-mile race at Concord, N.C., but it was two years later before Goodyear scored a win on a Superspeedway, with Jim Reed capturing the Southern 500.

During the 1960’s the two manufacturers fought it out head to head, with Goodyear coming out the eventual winner. During those same years though, there were numerous serious accidents and many deaths caused by tire failures as harder and safer tires gave way to softer and faster tires. In the late 60’s, Firestone finally withdrew their tires from stock car competition, and the long marriage between NASCAR and Goodyear began. Goodyear claims that their racing program has never turned a profit; it serves only as a marketing and research tool to make finer tires for your car and mine.

In the 1970’s there was one other minor incursion into the sport by McCreary Tires. Other than securing pole positions for J.D. McDuffie in 1978 and Harry Gant in 1979, they were unspectacular, and withdrew quickly when NASCAR issued a new ruling, that tire manufacturers wishing to supply tires for their sanctioned races must supply a quantity large enough for the entire field.

Things ran very smoothly for both NASCAR and Goodyear after that, with Goodyear supplying tires that were harder and safer. The tire wars of the early years, along with the injuries and deaths attributed to them were all but forgotten. However, like all good things, that came to an abrupt end in 1988, when Bob Newton, the owner of a small tire-manufacturing firm known as “Hoosier Tire and Rubber” decided to bring his tires into Winston Cup racing. Newton was not new to racing, since he already supplied tires for Late Models, Sprint cars and Sportsman events, including NASCAR’s own Sportsman division. It seemed like the quintessential David and Goliath battle, and few if any folks were impressed by the addition of the upstart company.

“Racing is our game,” said Newton, “and we play seven days a week. We’ve been working hard and testing different avenues than the big guy (Goodyear). Goodyear makes a good tire. They sit on the pole weekly, but ours is a come-on tire. It’s not a quick qualifier.” In the opening race of 1988 in Daytona, ten teams started on Hoosier tires. They didn’t win (Bobby Allison did, on Goodyears), but they were competitive. At the second race, in Richmond, Neil Bonnett, driving the Rahmoc Pontiac, recovered from being two laps down to post the first race win for Hoosier tires. Two weeks later, Bonnett scored a second win for Hoosier at the mile track in Rockingham. That was the wake-up call for Goodyear. They had been bested at their own game. Goodyear’s Public Relations Manager, Bill King, said, “Hoosier is a good racing tire. Bob Newton did his homework and he knows what he is doing. “

King continued, “When there is no competition, you don’t design a tire at the edge of the performance envelope. You design a tire to be safe and reliable. There is no question about a tire war on the Winston Cup circuit, but we haven’t even got our guns out yet. We’re still loading, but you’ll know when we start shooting.” That, gentle readers, was the beginning of what would get ugly before it got better. At Atlanta, all but two cars opted for Goodyears, mainly because Hoosier had never had a tire on that particular track. At Darlington, the following week, Lake Speed scored his one and only victory on the Winston Cup circuit, on Hoosier tires. In the following weeks, Goodyear designed a tire that would run as fast as the Hoosiers, and presented it at The Winston in Charlotte. After a hard crash by Ricky Rudd, resulting in a knee injury, Goodyear withdrew their new tires from the 600 the following week. During that 600, Rick Wilson, Harry Gant and Neil Bonnett were all transported to hospitals with varying injuries and Buddy Baker suffered a blood clot on his brain in a multi-car wreck, although that wasn’t caught for some three months. When it was discovered, Baker’s driving career ended. All injuries were the result of tire failures.

There were calls from many drivers and crew chiefs for NASCAR to step in and end the tire war, but NASCAR said that couldn’t be done, since it would violate the nation’s anti-trust laws. Throughout 1988, the war continued, with drivers switching from one tire to the other and back again, trying to second-guess which one might get them to the end of a race without serious injury. Both tires were faster than ever before, but neither was what might be described as “safe” or “reliable.” By the end of the year, “David” had won nine races of the twenty-nine on the schedule. “Goliath” had not been slain, but he most certainly knew he’d been in a battle.

Bob Newton said, “They thought from the very start that we wouldn’t last but a few races, but we were prepared for it. I spent my whole life in the business and I know what it’s all about. When I started, I was hopeful we could get 20 percent of the market. As it turned out we won nine races.”

The price paid for that disastrous season was a steep one. By the end of that year, J.D McDuffie, Bobby Wawak, Bill Elliott, Ricky Rudd, Harry Gant, Rick Wilson, Neil Bonnett, Bobby Allison, Jocko Maggiacomo, Kyle Petty and Rusty Wallace had all logged time in the hospital. Sports writers and fans alike had taken to referring to these drivers as “the walking wounded.” Crutches and casts seemed as much at home in the garage area as did tires and wrenches.

The following year, 1989, saw Goodyear attempt to come out swinging at the bell, with the introduction at Daytona of their new radial-ply tire. They had tested the tire for two months and thousands of miles, and deemed it safe and ready for the track. However, the first practice at Daytona told quite a different story, when both Bill Elliott and Dale Earnhardt hit the wall due to tire failures. Elliott sustained a double fracture of his wrist in his incident. At that point, Goodyear did the only honorable thing. They packed up their tires and withdrew from the Daytona 500.

Undaunted, the manufacturing giant went back to the drawing board and worked hard on their new radial. Goodyear’s new and improved radial tire debuted at North Wilkesboro that spring. While Hoosier tires were much faster in qualifying, those new Goodyears maintained their speed throughout the race, while the Hoosier bias-plies faded as bias-plies had always done. Dale Earnhardt won the race on Goodyear radial tires. Ironically, he would say in later years that he never really became accustomed to the radials, and preferred the bias-plies, but the radials were in the sport to stay.

In The Winston 500 at Talladega, Hoosier brought a new tire, touted by Bob Newton as the best tire he had ever produced, but only two drivers opted to use it that day. Had it not been for a late race caution, Morgan Shepherd, with Hoosiers on his Rahmoc Pontiac, might have won the race. The caution erased the lead Shepherd had built up and three cars shod with Goodyears left him at the starting line to finish 1-2-3. They were Davey Allison, Terry LaBonte and Mark Martin.

The next day, Newton announced that he was withdrawing Hoosier tires from Winston Cup competition. He did this in an extremely warm and friendly letter to NASCAR, which is too long to include in this space. However, he did acknowledge quietly that he might return someday. “I know how to play the game now. We’ve done all we can do as a little company. I’ve climbed Mount Everest and stuck the flag pole in the ground, but I didn’t want to live there,”

For their part, the drivers and owners were more than happy to see the war end, and to place their confidence in Goodyear to supply tires that would not fail at high speeds.

Newton did indeed make one more incursion into Winston Cup, in 1994. Hoosier tires won three races that year along with the all-star race, The Winston. In each case, the driver was Geoff Bodine. At the end of the year, Newton once more withdrew his tires, citing the excessive cost to his small company of supplying enough tires to service the entire field at each race. You could almost hear the collective sigh of relief from the garage area.

After seeing what happens when safety is sacrificed for speed, one must hope that Michelin’s only intent is to buy advertising time from the television networks and let it go at that. It might not suit the anti-trust laws to have only one tire supplier in the sport, but you can bet the farm that it suits the drivers and the car owners. Mark Martin’s cryptic comment, when asked what he thought about the possibility of another tire war was, “They’re going to kill somebody.” Unfortunately, he may have hit the nail right on its proverbial head. Both times that there was serious competition between tire manufacturers in the Winston Cup Series, the results were injuries and deaths. This fan hopes and prays that the "garage gossip" remains exactly that. I don't ever want to see again the carnage produced by a tire war.

You can contact Patty Kay at.. Insider Racing News