For manufacturer, not a good year here
Problems took air out of event
INDIANAPOLIS - Carl Edwards didn't want to point the finger at anyone. But it was obvious, at least to him, who was responsible for the problems everyone had yesterday with uneven wear on their Goodyear tires.
"Well, obviously, it's the folks that make the tires," said Edwards, who finished runner-up to Jimmie Johnson in yesterday's Brickyard 400. "I mean, that's just the way it is."
In the same breath, though, Edwards seemed to exonerate Goodyear.
"Look, I've heard people go on tirades [about the tire manufacturer]," he said. "Everybody's doing their job. Everyone is trying their hardest. Everybody makes mistakes. They just assumed, the way I understand, the rubber was going to fill in like it has before and everything would be fine.
"What happened is it turned into a dust instead of laying into the racetrack and it just never filled the gaps."
NASCAR officials were forced to order six competition cautions, which chopped the 160-lap race into 10-lap segments. On the last, Johnson outsprinted Edwards to capture a $509,236 payday.
Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president of competition, said it wasn't likely that the addition of other events would have aided in laying down a secondary layer of rubber on the track's surface.
"If you look at what happened, we just ran a 400-mile race with 43 competitors, and we still didn't rubber it in," Pemberton said. "I don't think a Nationwide or [Craftsman] Truck Series race was going to help."
Three years ago, Indy track officials were left with black eyes when 14 of 20 cars pulled out of a Formula One race because of Michelin tire problems.
"Obviously, it's not the race you want to present to the largest crowd [estimated at 240,000] to watch a stock car race this year, but we do appreciate the hard work of the drivers and the teams," said Joie Chitwood, the Speedway's president and chief operating officer.
A lap to forget
On Lap 46, Matt Kenseth's right rear tire exploded and shredded the right rear quarter panel of his car, inducing the race's fourth of 11 caution periods (for a total of 52 laps). On that same lap, Tony Stewart and Edwards dropped off the pace after reporting problems with right rear tires. "It ain't fun driving 200 miles per hour down the straightaway and not knowing if you're going to have a tire [at the turn]," said Stewart, who finished 23d . . . Sprint Cup Series points leader Kyle Busch wrapped up a busy weekend by finishing 15th. On Friday, he started 12th and finished eighth in the Craftsman Truck Series race at O'Reilly Raceway Park. He won the Nationwide Series race at ORP Saturday night, leading 197 out of 200 laps.
Michael Vega can be reached at vega@globe.com. 
