NASCAR 2015 News: Sprint Cup Series Has a Tire Controversy
Anytime one team goes out and dominates the Sprint Cup series circuit there start to be a lot of rumblings about how exactly that team has found some kind of edge outside of the rule book. Right now the rumblings are that Kevin Harvick's no. 4 team have found a way to manipulate the tires so they retain grip as the tire performance wears off during the race. That may be true, it may not be but that is what the NASCAR Sprint Cup series garage is talking about.
NASCAR is doing its job by seizing tires after the races each week. They did seize tires of the no. 4 team (after the last two races) to have inspected by an neutral third party. NASCAR fans are use to these kinds of goings on, back in 1998 when Jeff Gordon was winning a modern day record 13 races and driving away with the points title there was much the same talk and NASCAR stepped in and had his tires inspected. Nothing ever came of that.
"I don't think everybody realizes that they've taken our tires 17 times in the last 18 months. Every time we finish first or second, our car goes back to the R&D Center with the tires we won the race on. NASCAR's doing their jobs, and everybody else is making a big deal about it, right?" Harvick's crew chief Rodney Childers told NBC's NASCAR Talk.
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The rumors are that teams are drilling holes in tires to make them softer so they keep their grip as they wear out. NASCAR is full of colorful stories about being outside the rules as much as baseball, is yet every time these rumors build to a critical mass, like they are right now, nothing much ever comes of it.
Childes put it best: "We beat 'em every week, so they better get working on their cars a little bit, I'd say."
