SPRINT CUP EXCHANGE STUDENTS

TIME TO MAKE THE DONUTS

INTERVIEW:

ARIC ALMIROLA

Hard Card2014 VOL. 1 ISS. 2

PULP FRICTION “Drive It Like You Stole It”: Epitaph For a Racing Tire.

CONTENTSFEATURES10 Sprint cup exchange

students19 ARIC ALMIROLA:

THE AMERICANO

COVER STORY27 PULP FRICTION

“DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT”: EPITAPH FOR A RACING TIRE.

UP FRONT04 PACE LAP

Pull Up A Monitor, You’re In The Right Place

05 RACERBOY Time To Make the Donuts

07 Motormouth Jeff Gordon, Richard Petty, And Losing

18 ECHOES AND BACKFIRES Is That Finger Loaded?

18 The Golden Boy Says Goodbye

24 Photographer's Picks

Front cover image of Danica Patrick: Action Sports Photography / Shutterstock.com

v This, and every issue of Hard Card, is provided free of charge to the fans of this great sport. We, at Smithfield Foods, are passion-ate enthusiasts (just like you!) and want to share our access with fans as never before.

PUBLISHERBOB WEBER

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFTED WEST

CONTRIBUTORSMANNY N. HENRYBOB WEBER GEORGE DAMON LEVY

ART DIRECTORKIM CONKLIN

TECHNICAL DIRECTORROB GRADY

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERBRAD SCHLOSS

SMITHFIELD FOODSPRESIDENT/CEOLARRY POPE

PRESIDENT/COOGEORGE RICHTER

CORPORATE VP/GLOBAL CIOMANSOUR ZADEH

MANAGER – MOBILITYJASHMIN SHRESTHA

Hard Card2014 VOL. 1 ISS. 1

This, and every issue of Hard Card, is provided free of charge to the fans of this great sport. We, at Smithfield Foods, are passionate enthusiasts (just like you!) and want to share our access with fans as never before.

We welcome your comments, thoughts and requests at hardcard@smithfieldfoods.com

4 VOL. 1 // ISS. 2

PULL UP A MONITOR, YOU’RE IN THE RIGHT PLACEWelcome to Hard Card, Issue Two!

We bet you want to know what’s really going on in Sprint Cup. We do, too. That’s why we take our name from NASCAR’s elite “Hard Card”—the legendary little credit card-sized, all-year-long, go-anywhere-talk-to-everyone Garage/Hot-Pits credential. We’re here to see it all. And while here, we’ll put you on the pole with everything worth knowing in Cup.

Just a click or two … and you’re into the garages. Talk to the legends. Get straight answers to the questions you’d ask. Sprint Cup is the hottest professional racing on the planet—the margin of victory is split seconds and feet. But the weaponry of victory is

brilliant engineering, world-class technology, and strategy we all want to know more about.

Cool. Start reading.We’re full-immersion. We love what makes

the fastest cars fast … the smartest teams smart … the winningest drivers win. And we look hard at Cup racing’s fascinating mysteries. For instance, in this issue, George Levy, longtime past editor at Autoweek, takes a perceptive look at why drivers from other elite racing, some of them World Champions, come to Cup, struggle desperately, and sometimes come to nothing.

We look in depth at the technological miracle of the Goodyear Eagle Cup racing

tire. It bears 4,000 lb. of torturous loading at 200 mph for a solid hour … laying down little more than a human footstep of grip.

In the Hard Card Interview, Aric Almirola tells his unique personal story as a first-generation American Cup driver taking up The Chase. In another feature, the greatest NASCAR legend of all time deplores victory donuts. Finally, we appreciate one of today’s reigning legends, enduring his uneasy relationship with victory and defeat.

Sprint Cup is 200-mph warfare on four footprint-sized tissues of rubber. It's one of the toughest, scariest sports anywhere.

Take a closer look—you’ll like it.

PACE LAP

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TIME TO MAKE THE DONUTSBy Bob Weber

Actor Michael Vale played the role of Fred the Baker in the highly memorable series of Dunkin’ Donuts commercials back in the 80’s. His signature line, ‘it’s time to make the donuts’, connected with consumers to the point that when the series had run its creative course, consumers insisted they would support the move only if Fred (a fictional character) was provided a proper retirement party. Can you imagine?

Clearly, if you assumed that the donut (actually, doughnut) is a tasty treat of American origin, you would not be wrong, as credit is assigned to an American in 1847, Hanson Gregory.

These days, the menu of Sprint Cup race-day items includes mandatory slinging donuts by race winners, as they melt Goodyear’s hard work into molten masses, taking the vulcanization process to a higher level unimagined by Goodyear’s engineers. (Tune-in to our racing-tire story, on page 24.) Of course, the celebratory post-race donut is a tradition coined in America on NASCAR’S many stages, right?

With deepest regrets, I must inform you that today’s public execution of race tires stems not from one of our own … but an Italian. Yep. Alex Zanardi, hailing from Bologna, Italy, first spun his Indy Car into a froth in 1997 at the Long Beach Grand Prix. And despite warnings involving fines, he continued to display his winning glee, backed by the promise from team owner Chip Ganassi that he would cover Zanardi’s fines.

From there, the tidal wave of spinning donuts has covered the motorsports landscape here in America, particularly in NASCAR. Heck,

RACERBOY

even Sebastian Vettel, the winner of the 2013 United States Grand Prix at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, did a donut in his F1 Red Bull racer.

But there are a few folks who frown upon the practice in

NASCAR, and for very good reasons—NASCAR Hall of Fame members Richard Petty and Dale Inman are two of them. Richard recorded 200 race wins over his remarkable racing career, and you are telling me he never did a

FedEx Victory Donut, with vanilla frosting.

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donut? Nope, and that’s the truth; you could look it up.

Barry Sanders, one of the greatest running backs in the history of Pro Football, with 109 scored touchdowns to underscore that assessment, always handed the football to a referee upon penetrating the end zone, then thanked his linemen. The

message? “I’ve been here before.” Aric Almirola recorded his first

Sprint Cup win this year in the Coke Zero 400 on the high banks at Daytona. Aric’s win returned the #43 to the winner’s circle for the first time in 15 years, and it just happened to be on the 30th Anniversary of Richard Petty’s 200th win. At the same track. At the same race. In the

same iconic #43! Talk about serendipity. Aric fielded a very competitive

car that took command of the race after the final yellow flag, and he never looked back…until another yellow flag was flown due to worsening weather that ultimately ended the race. He learned of his maiden win sitting atop the pit box with crew chief Trent Owens, as they were planning strategy should the race resume. It never resumed,

and Aric was deprived of the chance to exuberantly celebrate with a series of donuts.

Or was he?Aric was asked that very question

during his appearance on NBC Sports’ NASCAR America program on July 24th by host Adam Alexander. If you haven’t already heard, NBC Sports Network re-

assumes its broadcast role with NASCAR in 2015, beginning with Daytona’s July 4th race, and the word in the garage is that fans will be pleased with the network’s innovative approach to the sport. NASCAR America is just a warm-up.

But back to Aric’s answer about how he plans to celebrate his next win. You might find it refreshing:

“The King and Dale told me that we don’t do donuts at Richard Petty Motorsports after

a win. He asked me if I had ever seen the winning jockey at the Kentucky Derby dismount his horse and kick the crap out of it. I said ‘no sir.’ Well then, he said, you don’t do donuts in our race cars, either”.

Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? HC

Aric’s win just happened to be on the 30th Anniversary of Richard Petty’s 200th win … same track … same race … same iconic #43.

TIME TO MAKE THE DONUTS HARDCARDACCESS.COM

Aric wins his first-ever Sprint Cup race at Daytona, July 4, 2014.

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JEFF GORDON, RICHARD PETTY, & LOSINGBy Ted West

I want to ask you a professional question—how would you like to be Jeff Gordon?

I know. Maybe you “hate” Jeff Gordon, like people “hate” Kyle Busch. But I’m not talking about that kind of hate—the kind where you decide, on a blind impulse, for better or worse, forever and ever ... and that’s it.

This is a professional question. How would you like being the professional Jeff Gordon? Living his life? I’ve been thinking about it.

See, I like Jeff Gordon, always have. And except for the fact that I’m too old and too underpaid (by millions), I don’t think I’d mind being him at all. How bad could it be? He’s rich. A multiple Cup Champion. Driving for a dominant team—except when the Penske Fords on a mile-and-a-half track make even horsepower-rich Hendrick Chevy RO7s look like a footnote. (Hey, everyone likes a challenge.)

By mid-2014 in the Johnson Millenium, Gordon remains consistently one of the few fastest, regularly a Top Five or Ten finisher, and forever the points leader. He’s a white-hot competitor with the speed, experience, and car to win.

Yet he doesn’t.Okay, once. And yes, yes, to win at all in Cup is huge ... yah-da-yah-da-yah-da. But when Johnson finally wins, he does it in handfuls. And weekend after

weekend, there’s something crestfallen about Jeff Gordon’s races. His win at Kansas guaranteed his place in The Chase, but for him, it seems a consolation. He has all the goods for limitless winning, yet save that one

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exception ... he “can’t.” A strong word to apply to a

brilliant driver. Call it luck, fate, a curse. If that sounds harsh, admit it, he doesn’t have “good” luck, a “happy” fate, long strings of

“blessings.” “Okay” things happen to him, few “sweet” things. The great Mario Andretti’s later career comes to mind.

Of course, the same thing can be said for most veterans

in Cup—all except sweetness himself, the blinding Jimmie J. By now, at mid-season, the only driver approaching Gordon’s bittersweetness is lightning-fast Kevin Harvick. If ill fortune wasn’t constantly stepping in, Harvick would be a five-time winner at least. Instead, he’s snake-bit.

But Gordon is different. A multiple Champion consumed in struggling, he’s lost none of his speed, none of his fight. And to his great credit, despite the struggles, this season he seems to have concluded an uneasy peace with his results. After most of his high-

finishing non-wins, he’s the first to say “how much fun” he’s having racing. After 22 seasons, it has the sound of a hard-bitten campaigner determined to wrest pleasure out of his final years.

Sometimes, though—a disappointing race at Kentucky, for instance, when he said he had far better than a sixth-place car—the pain of falling short is visible.

Racers, like all pro athletes, are complicated people. They have unrealistic expectations and judge themselves harshly by their most recent result. It can be ugly. Peyton Manning famously suffers for weeks after a Super Bowl loss. Gordon’s proven greatness ranks him as a NASCAR Peyton Manning.

Which is why I’ve been thinking about what it would be like being Gordon. And finding no good

answers, it was time to go to The Man On The Mountain. R P. The King.

Richard Petty is a great racer, because he won so often, so gracefully. But he’s a great man, because he tells the truth about his own sleepless nights when he fell short of his own high standard. I wanted his opinion about the great, struggling #24.

And Richard’s first response rang clear as a bell: “Jeff is driving better than he’s ever driven, no question.”

Richard paused. “But he knows too much. He

thinks too much ... about the cars ahead, his racing ... about everything.”

I asked what that meant.“It happens to all of us when

we ’been around awhile,” Richard said. “Your focus just starts getting wider. You start winning, then you start winning some more. It makes you start thinking about it—how you’re doing it, why you’re successful ... what to do to make it keep bein’ that way. And a while

I believe in fate, not luck. My Daddy said, just keep working hard and fate will turn around.

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later, when things keep on going right, like they did for Jeff ... you’ve got all this money and prestige. You’ve got your family to think about. You have this reputation you’ve built up and all these things on your mind.”

He nodded. “It happened to me just like to everyone, no stoppin’ it. You just change, nothing you can do. You start thinking like maybe you can make things come out the way you need them to—and maybe sometimes you can. You build up experience, and experience makes you smarter. Or helps.”

He smiles, the hard smile of a man with long experience.

“But you can never make it happen, when it ain’t meant to happen. I know just where Jeff is right now, because I was there a long time. You’ll be looking up at a group of cars ahead, and you’re thinkin’, well, this car’ll do this, and that one’ll do that ... so I’ll go up there, but if ... and so on—while a younger guy with not as much experience, a hungry guy like Jeff was twenty years ago, will just

drive straight up there and try to pass. It’s different. A different part of your life. You can’t change it—it’s just life.”

So I asked Richard what you change to make it go better, but he just laughed.

“You can’t! I believe in fate, not luck. My Daddy said, just keep working hard, and fate will turn around.”

It sounded like one of those enviable beliefs a natural winner has—a saying that doesn’t really work for the rest of us. But then Richard completed his hard-earned thought.

“In 1971 and 1972, we were just about unbeatable. Then 1973 came along, and we were hopeless—couldn’t win for losin’. But in 1974 and 1975 ... same car, same engines, same people ... we went back to being unbeatable. It’s just the way it is.”

Jimmie Johnson would understand perfectly. He took half of 2014 to win his first race ... as Richard would say, he kept working hard, then fate turned around.

JEFF GORDON, RICHARD PETTY, AND LOSING HARDCARDACCESS.COM

No one in the NASCAR garages doubts he went on “working hard,” just as everyone knows Gordon is “working hard.”

But then, so is everyone else.... A famous Psychologist, who had

both professional and personal reason to know began his best-seller a few years ago by writing, “Life is difficult.” And the hardest

work of all is accepting what Richard calls “fate” ... what life gives you. Gordon has been Cup Champion four times, and could be again. But in the here and now, life is difficult. While he goes on “working hard,” his very hardest job will be to hold in mind “how much fun” it is being an all-time great. HC

Gordon getting it right.

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Know the most unbelievable scene in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby? It’s not the one where he stabs himself in the thigh to prove he’s paralyzed from the waist down. (Which he’s not.) Or the one where his father teaches him to conquer his fears by locking him in a Smokey Yunick-tribute Chevelle with a live cougar. Or the scene in which we learn his sons are named Walker and Texas Ranger.

It’s the scene where Perrier-sipping Formula One World Champion Jean Girard comes to Cup racing. And starts winning. Immediately.

Trust me—that never happens.At least not since the days when Mario

Andretti was driving in penny loafers.Back in the ‘60s, proven winners

in other major racing series came to NASCAR from time to time and won there. IndyCar champions Mario Andretti

and A.J. Foyt never spent a lot of time in Cup racing, but each won its premier event, the Daytona 500. Formula One and Le Mans legend Dan Gurney only started 16 Cup races, but he won five of them—all at Riverside. Gurney was so dominant there that many took to renaming the California track’s annual Motor Trend 500 the Gurney 500.

But in recent years, a slue of champions from IndyCar, Formula One and other

FORMULA ONE WORLD CHAMPION TO CUP CHAMPION? NOT BLUUUDY LIKELY…

SPRINT CUP EXCHANGE STUDENTSBy George Damon Levy

GoDaddy Danica is getting good grades.

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top series have come to NASCAR in search of triumphs and trophies, and with the notable exception of Anthony Wayne Stewart (“Smoke,” to you), they’ve pretty much got their ascots handed to them.

Juan Pablo Montoya came to the Daytona 500 in 2007 with a Fortune 500 resume. At 31, he’d already won both an Indy 500 and seven Formula One races. Many expected him to dominate. Didn’t happen. In 255 Cup starts to date, JPM’s managed to win two races, fewer than one percent of his starts—both on road courses.

F1 World Champions—underline that, World Champions—Kimi Raikkonen and Jacques Villeneuve came to Cup, too. Barely made an impression.

Three-time IndyCar champion Dario Franchitti? A man who won three Indianapolis 500s and 31 IndyCar races, placing himself eighth on the all-time American open-wheel wins list?

Ten starts. Best finish: 22nd.The interesting thing about

Montoya and Franchitti is, after their NASCAR days, both returned to IndyCar racing—and resumed winning. So it wasn’t like they weren’t competitive anymore. They just weren’t competitive in Cup. Couldn’t do it!

So what gives? What is it about driving Cup cars that acts like Kryptonite on the world’s top drivers from other parts of the sport? Recently, HardCardAccess.com put the question to Montoya, Joey Logano, Marcos Ambrose, British broadcaster and champion racer David Hobbs (who made a couple of impressive Cup starts in the ‘70s) and King Richard Petty himself. Oh, and Danica Patrick, the most high-profile of the current exchange students, and one who, given her credentials coming in, has made a more successful transition than most.

THE NASCAR LEARNER’S PERMITThis story began with a conversation I had a couple of years ago with A.J. Allmendinger,

when he was with the Penske Team driving the Shell/Pennzoil car. The Los Gatos, CA, native, who had come to Cup racing in 2007 after a meteoric rise in IndyCar, told me several things about the difference between driving a stock car and, well, pretty much anything! They were things I’d never heard put quite so well.

The most fundamental difference, he said, was that in an IndyCar, if it’s moving or sliding in a turn, generally speaking, you’re going slower. In a Cup car, though, it’s just the opposite. If the car isn’t moving around in a turn, if it isn’t twitching, squirming, and otherwise acting like a high-strung racehorse, you’re probably going slower.

Which means a driver who has spent his entire career learning how to keep the car from moving around in a turn has a lot to unlearn.

Two-time NASCAR winner Marcos Ambrose, who came to the series with championships in both single-seaters and more-NASCAR-like Australian V8 Supercars,

amplifies on that.“A formula car is really about

letting the car do the work for you,” says the 1999 European Formula Ford Champion. “You have a high downforce-to-weight ratio.

“In a stock car, it’s just an animal. It’s like a bucking bronco—it’s trying to kick you off all the time. It’s trying to slodge the corners all the time. You’ve gotta really be

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aggressive behind the wheel.”We’re pretty sure Curtis Turner

never used the term “slodge.” Montoya neither. But he agrees

with the general observation.“When you have a 3,400-lb. stock

car,” says Montoya, “you have to attack the racetrack in a much different way than if you were on the same track with an IndyCar or Formula One car. They don’t have the same braking, the same center of gravity, the same downforce, et cetera.”

If the difference was eye-opening to Montoya when he came to NASCAR, it was just as stunning when he left at the end of last season to return to IndyCars.

“We tested late last year at Phoenix,” said the Colombian, “so I could begin learning the new [Penske IndyCar]. Helio [Castroneves] was with us. When he told me where the braking point is for an IndyCar at Phoenix, I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.’ You just have to completely retrain your brain.”

Another major difference,

Allmendinger told me, is aero. He recalled how, after his first test in a Cup car, he set blistering times. He and the team were all smiles. But as soon as he started racing with other cars on the track, and he began to experience side-drafting and bump-drafting in ways that simply don’t exist in other forms of racing, he realized he had a

whole lot to learn. Allmendinger scored his first, breakthrough Cup victory August 10 at the Cheez-It 355 at The Glen, in a thriller with Ambrose.

A CAR IS A CAR IS A CAROne aspect that tends to get overlooked in the discussion of

how well drivers adapt to NASCAR is the relative competitiveness of the cars they’re adapting to. Hobbs recalls a comment by the late, great motorsports broadcaster Chris Economaki.

“Chris Economaki always used to tell me the trouble with Formula One is the car is so important. And in NASCAR and IndyCars they’re all pretty much the same, and it’s really up to the driver.

“But it’s clearly not as simple as that,” says the former Trans-Am and Formula 5000 champion. “With a NASCAR car, just like any other car, the car is obviously crucially important. You’ve only got to watch people that, after a massive winning streak, suddenly can’t seem to get out of their own way. Well, what the hell happened to them? Obviously the driver hasn’t changed. The car changed.”

And Montoya believes Economaki’s worldview has been completely flipped in the past 20 years.

“In NASCAR the car is the limit,” says Montoya. “You can only do

SPRINT CUP EXCHANGE STUDENTS HARDCARDACCESS.COM

Aussie Marcos Ambrose shines turning right, struggles on the ovals.

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what the car will allow you to do. When we had good cars, we were up front and challenging for wins. When we didn’t, we struggled to

run 20th. It is what it is. Here, in IndyCar, the car will do so much more. You [the driver] are the limit in this series.”

Which means, it’s all the more imperative for top drivers to get into the best cars.

But then, looking back, maybe that’s always been the case. When Mario won the 1967 Daytona 500, he was driving for Holman-Moody, one of the era’s best teams. His runner-up that day was Holman-Moody teammate and 1965 Daytona 500 winner Freddie Lorenzen. When Foyt won the 1972 500, he was racing for the Wood Brothers—another top-shelf team. When Gurney won all of those races at Riverside, he drove for Holman-Moody and the Wood Brothers.

See a pattern there?Like Gurney, Foyt and Andretti,

Stewart came into Cup with one of NASCAR’s topmost teams, Joe Gibbs Racing. He started winning right away. Montoya and Franchitti, by contrast, came in with Ganassi, a good team, but one that has never won a championship—despite flashes of strength, it more often struggles simply to make the Chase. Ambrose has been driving

for J.T.G. Daugherty and Richard Petty Motorsports. Montoya, Ambrose and Allmendinger all have had their greatest success on road courses, where their deepest skills lie. This argues, unsurprisingly, that even the best road racer can’t succeed regularly in Cup’s predominantly oval racing without a top oval car. But besides having a top oval car, in contemporary Cup racing, a driver needs top oval-driving skills, as well—a talent-set every bit as demanding as road racing. Expert oval-driver feedback is critical to keeping a top oval car competitive.

I DON’T NEED A DOCTOR—I NEED A SPECIALISTBut even if the competitiveness of the car is a major factor, it’s not the only one. In Gurney and Foyt’s day, most top drivers drove a lot of different cars all the time—the cars weren’t all that different from one another. Today, drivers specialize a lot more in one form of racing, and the cars themselves

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are technologically vastly more specialized than in the past.

“When Montoya went into NASCAR,” says Hobbs, “funny enough, the week it was announced, I was at the Milwaukee Mile and Dario Franchitti was testing there. I said, ‘Well, I think you’ll find that old Montoya is going to have his work cut out for him in NASCAR.’ And Dario said to me, ‘Och, he’ll blow them away!’

(We’re pretty sure Curtis Turner never said “Och,” either.)

“He said, ‘A driver of that caliber, his skill; two or three races to get settled in, and he’ll just start blowing away the regulars,’’’ Hobbs recalls Franchitti saying. “And Montoya… how long’s it been, 5 or 6 years? [Over 7, actually.] He never won an oval race!”

Put another way, it’s not the nature of drivers that’s changed—it’s the way they’re

nurtured.“Everybody specializes so

much [today],” says Hobbs. “If you specialize in driving single-seaters like Montoya did… When he was a kid and he drives go-karts, then he jumps into little race cars, Formula Fords, then Formula 1600, then Mazda-whatever and then the next thing you drive is GP2, and then a Formula One. He does that for six years. So now he’s just so thoroughly grounded in open-wheel racing that it’s very difficult to adapt toward NASCAR, to those ‘truck’ cars.”

NASCAR’s all-time leading race-winner and team-owner Richard Petty agrees.

“Today, we’ve got our own engineering and technology into these cars. It’s tough for anyone today to switch from one car to another, because everything is so specialized, so specific.”

Penske phenom Joey Logano

thinks growing specialization is the biggest reason for this level of difficulty.

“The guys that run in Cup have raced their whole life,” says Logano. “There is no substitute for experience. And the cars, the way they are these days, you need experience to know what to do with them.

“The guys that come in from

other race series, they have the talent, and they have been racing their whole lives, but it still takes a long time to get used to these cars. You have to figure out grip, and how to work with the air, and how dirty air and such messes with the car. That is stuff you can only learn from experience and race conditions, and that is why you don’t see young

SPRINT CUP EXCHANGE STUDENTS

IndyCar great Dario Franchitti never quite found the NASCAR pedals.

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guys coming in and running up front right away. You need a few years of experience to figure it all out.”

Logano, the driver who got the nickname “Sliced Bread” for his precocious talent, should know. The youngest Cup winner ever, at 19 years and 35 days, struggled through an extended dry-spell before breaking through over the past 16 months to become one of the consistently fastest drivers in the series.

“When Tony came in, I don’t think the transition was as tough, because the cars have gotten tougher and tougher to drive over the years, and more aero dependent,” says Logano. “Now, the transition is really tough. It all comes with experience of being in a Cup or Nationwide Series car.”

PUT ME IN, COACHCoaching can help, but perhaps

less so than in other forms. And unlike F1 and IndyCars, it seems harder for one NASCAR driver to coach another. Kevin Harvick may be the exception. Earlier this year, he famously gave Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Danica Patrick some pointers, after which she seemed to go a lot better. Did Harvick’s advice really help?

“Kevin [Harvick] is probably someone that's helped the most,” said Danica. “He's just able to put things in terms and ways and words that I understand and I'm able to use. Kurt (Busch) has been helpful, as well, but Kevin the most, and it helps. It just helps. Little things like when you get up to speed, are you flat out around 3 and 4, and what are some of your tricks when it gets tight, or gets loose, or where is there a little extra grip on the track.”

No surprise, then, that so many recommend a longer, more

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gradual transition as being the key to success. People forget now that Tony Stewart started a number of ARCA and Nationwide races before coming to Cup full time. Ambrose went through the Truck Series and Nationwide, something the King thinks has been crucial to his development.

“He started in the Trucks, moved to the Nationwide cars and now Cup racing,” says Petty. “He just didn’t jump into a Cup car and go. He moved up and really started over when he came here. That’s just a smarter way of looking at things.

Patrick, the GoDaddy driver, who tested as far back as 2002, and then again in late 2009 prior to making her Nationwide debut in 2010, thinks a more gradual transition is crucial.

“If I had gone from IndyCar straight to Sprint Cup, it would have been an incredible challenge,” says Patrick. “Stock cars are definitely a lot different than an IndyCar. Understanding the flow of the races and what the cars do, it was important to have the base of

the Nationwide Series experience before going to Cup.”

And Patrick has arguably made the transition better than most. Unlike Montoya, Franchitti, Raikkonen and Villeneuve—all champions in the series they came from—Patrick was only an occasional front-runner in IndyCar … which is exactly what she’s doing in Cup racing.

Six-time Champion Jimmie Johnson is highly complimentary. “She’s been quick,” he said at a fall media event at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “There’s been Atlanta, Loudon last week, Chicago, [where] she’s shown a lot of pace in really getting the car figured out. I can only imagine how difficult it is to come from an open-wheel car to a stock car. We’ve seen Dario [Franchitti], Juan [Pablo Montoya], many try it, and it’s not an easy transition, and she’s doing a really nice job.”

Montoya agrees with the transitional approach, but he feels it’s rare that drivers or teams have the patience for it.

“I really think you need to run as many races as you can in a stock car,” says Montoya, “whether that is in the Nationwide Series or

ARCA. Any amount of seat time is beneficial, because stock cars are like nothing else they will ever drive.

“Ideally, you would want to

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spend a couple of years in the Nationwide Series. Unfortunately, that is not always the case with the talented open-wheel drivers. You have team owners that hope to catch lightning in a bottle—but that rarely happens as quickly as they hope. It’s just way too different.”

If it takes that much time and experience to learn Cup racing, what about going the other way? Might Cup drivers actually make an easier transition to F1 and IndyCar? In May, Kurt Busch earned a lot of admiration—and the 2014 Indy 500 Rookie of the Year Award—for qualifying 12th, then moving up to 6th at the checker.

But it’s unlikely to become a major trend. For one thing, NASCAR is where most of the money is. It’s one of the main reasons all these IndyCar and F1 veterans have been heading this way. We put the question to Logano, who, at just 24 years old, is young enough to consider participating in a number of different series.

No way, says the Connecticut-born Shell/Pennzoil driver:

“Sure it would be fun down the road. But I’m here to win Cup races and Cup championships, and that’s my focus.

“There are a lot of things I’d love to drive, but I can’t even think about that, because I’m focused on what I want to do now, and that’s win races and championships for the next 20 years.”

As Ricky Bobby said … If you ain’t first, you’re last. And to be first in Cup racing these days, any time you spend learning how to drive Formula One, Le Mans or IndyCar … may be to your disadvantage! HC

George Levy is a former editor of AutoWeek and a lifelong NASCAR fan. His favorite drivers include Tim Richmond, Fred Lorenzen, Jimmie and Junior Johnson and Richard Petty.

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It was a mystery no one could solve. Why would 2015 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee Fred Lorenzen, one of the most dominant drivers in NASCAR history, retire at 32 during the 1967 season? At the time, “Fearless Freddy’s” winning percentage was over 20%—third highest in history. (Only Herb Thomas and Tim Flock won more often.) And most of those wins

were in the sport’s biggest races. (It was common back then for some top teams to compete only in the longer, big-payday events.) The popular 1965 Daytona 500 winner came back in 1970 for a few more seasons, but his heart wasn’t in it, and he never won again. Turns out, a big part of the reason he quit was another

driver who had left under very different circumstances. “I quit way too early,” Lorenzen told Circle Track magazine years later. “I was at my prime, but I’d won about everything there was to win, and I had plenty of money. I was sick with stomach ulcers, and I was tired of traveling and living out of a suitcase. Most of all, the spark was gone; the king (Glenn “Fireball” Roberts)

was dead. His death had a great influence on me. He was my god and my teammate, and he was the best. He was the big cheese of the South. He was brains and throttle—in a league by himself. I always wanted to be better than he was, so he pushed and drove me to excel.” George D. Levy

ECHOES AND BACKFIRES HARDCARDACCESS.COM

Pioneering African-American driver Wendell Scott faced enormous prejudice as the only black man in the Grand National series in the ‘50s, ‘60s and early ‘70s. Some drivers, like Hall of Famer Joe Weatherly, were welcoming. Others, like the very talented Jack Smith, were not. Smith would pull alongside Scott on pace laps and point his finger at him like it was a pistol. The message was clear: I’m going to put you into the wall. Which Smith did. Regularly. According to Scott’s son, Franklin, Smith kept at it until one day Wendell decided to put an end to it. "He [Smith] had wrecked us up at Winston-Salem, and my daddy had had it with him," Franklin recalled. "On the pace lap, he pulled up beside Daddy and started pointing his finger at him. We didn't know it, but Daddy had his gun with him, and he pulled it out and pointed the gun back.” Scott never had trouble with Smith again. George D. Levy

IS THAT FINGER LOADED? THE GOLDEN BOY SAYS GOODBYE

ECHOES ANDBACKFIRESPersonalities and pithy remarks, hardcore and hilarious, from NASCAR’s long and luminous past.By G. Levy

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Most of all, the spark was gone; the king was dead.

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CHAPTER 2: THE AMERICANO

For a guy who’s serious about making his name in Cup—and he is—Aric Almirola just loves to kid around. When the subject isn’t something crucial like his Smithfield Ford being tight

and going up the hill in turn three ... when it’s between-times and the pressure is truly off ... you’ll find him juking and jiving with his turquoise-and-white-uniformed crew.

It’s like they’ve all been best buds since junior high—and he’s their favorite guy.

No wonder. NASCAR is looking to find more people like fun-loving, personable Aric for Cup racing. NASCAR’s Drive For Diversity initiative actively seeks out ethnic and gender diversity—more Danicas, more Hispanic Arics ... more all kinds of Cup racers. The trouble is, it can’t find many.

After all, no matter who it is, you don’t just “create” a front-running Sprint Cup driver—it takes more than a hearty handshake and three years of on-track training. Even the brilliant ex-F1-star Juan Pablo Montoya, immensely talented, recently stepped away from Cup after seven seasons, having made hardly a ripple.

Take it seriously: a handful of Cup stars are harvested from literally millions of young aspirants, many of them under ten years old, male, and sufficiently motivated to be racing karts and refining their craft long before the rest of us

THE HARD CARD INTERVIEW // VOL. 2

FLORIDA’S ARIC ALMIROLA—AMERICAN AS PERNÍL AND APPLE PIE...

NASCAR’s most promising shortstop strolls the garage area base pads…

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INTERVIEW // THE AMERICANO

even hear about puberty. Cup stars are rare specimens. Which brings us back to the

even rarer Hispanic Cup star Aric Almirola of Tampa, Florida, America.

Like many of the truest Americans, Aric’s family roots lie offshore. In his case, they lie just 90 short miles south of the Key West Zoo. In the early Sixties, when Aric’s father was only four, the Almirolas, with hordes of others, fled Fidel Castro’s Cuba on a Freedom Flight. They were bound for an unknowable political-refugee future in South Florida—and the Castro-ites were content to part with any hint of opposition in their Communist island paradise.

If that sounds kind-hearted, it wasn’t. Emigrés could leave provided they surrender every family possession. Aric’s grandmother had to surrender even her wedding ring!

Some island paradises are nicer than others.

Faced with a tidal wave of penniless Cubans, the U.S.

Government welcomed them only “kinda.” Adults were awarded $50 cash. Aric’s father, age four, merited only $25.

But the Almirolas, typical Cubans, were hard-working folk. Nothing could relieve the harshness of being broke and unable to speak the language in a foreign country. But they had skills in a land where hard work was rewarded. They battled hard to make a go of it.

HC It sounds unbelievably hard.AA It was! My dad was four, and it was a couple more years before he could start school, so he was far behind. And they didn’t have ESL [English as a Second Language] back then, so the language barrier was a big struggle for him ... reading textbooks and that stuff was a real challenge. He had a tough time in school. When he got out, he joined the Air Force, and my parents had me when they were 20. But as soon as they did, he made it a point for no one to speak Spanish around me. That way, I’d speak only English and do

well in school.

HC: How does he do in English now?AA: Oh, he’s perfect! He’s been a firefighter in Tampa all his life. He’s perfect in both English and Spanish.

HC: Have you ever wanted to learn Spanish?

AA: I’m doing that. Over the winter, every Tuesday for two hours, I had somebody come to the house to teach me. But when the racing year began, my schedule’s so hectic I just haven’t had a chance to get back going with it. I rarely have any time at home since I left for Daytona, and the little time I do I enjoy spending with my wife and two kids. I’ve slacked off with

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my Spanish, but I’ll get back on it when I can.

HC: You have two children?AA: Alex is a year old, and Abby is brand-new.

HC: How did you get started in racing? AA: It was mainly my abuelo—my grandfather on my mother’s side. He owns a body shop in Tampa, R&S Auto-Body. His name is Sam

Rodriguez—anyone who knows Florida racing in those days knows who he is. He’d been racing forever, since well before I was born, but he retired when I was eight.

HC: Was he successful?AA: [Almirola laughs.] He won all the time—he was very successful! That was a big part of the motivation for me wanting to race. I got so used to going to races with him that, as a little kid, I honestly

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thought it was normal when the race was over to get your picture taken with the checkered flag. Seriously. I loved that!

HC: What did he race?AA: He drove outlaw sprint cars but usually not in the Outlaw series. He raced in Florida and the Southeast—a lot of the time locally in Tampa, but he was all over the place.

HC: Did he get you driving?AA: Actually, he didn’t push it at all. We went to watch a friend of his out at a go-kart track, and there was a kart sitting over by the grid for sale. We looked at it, and my grandfather said, “Do you like that go-kart?” I said, “Yeah!” He said, “You think you want to race go-karts?” I said, “Yeah—I do!” We bought the go-kart, and away we went.

HC: Where do you find a grandfather like that?AA: Yeah—pretty cool. We put the kart together and got an engine

for it. We raced every Saturday we could. I played baseball as a young kid, too. As long as my baseball game was in the morning, I was good—I could get to my game, then get to the kart track, practice and race. As I got older and my coaches wanted me around more, it became harder and harder, but I still did it until high school. Finally, I had to choose between being a shortstop and a racer.

HC: Was that a tough decision?AA: That’s a funny question—it really was a tough choice, but in the moment, it was easy. The hard part was, I had so many friends on the baseball team, so many kids I was looking forward to playing ball with. And also, I thought if I ever wanted to make it to the big time, baseball was a better opportunity. There are a lot more openings in major-league baseball—30-man rosters, compared to just 43 spots at the Sprint Cup level. So obviously, if I ever wanted to make it to the level of a professional athlete, the numbers were better in baseball.

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But sitting at shortstop waiting for a groundball to come my way, or battling a pitcher to get a base hit or hit a home run ... the excitement is nowhere close to driving a racecar!

HC: When you graduated to racing modifieds on short tracks, how well did that train you for faster, bigger tracks?AA: You don’t learn how to race at Charlotte Motor Speedway by racing short tracks—the technique is so much different. But what you learn in short-track racing is how to maneuver your car and how to get your chassis set up the way

you want it. I worked on my own racecars—my dad and grandfather helped, too—but I worked on my own cars. And when we got to the racetrack, I was the key part of changing the set-up. That helped me more than anything to get to where I’m at now, because at a really young age, I understood the mechanics of racecars.

HC: Then you worked your way up to the trucks.AA: I’d say trucks are kind of like double-A baseball. I think it’s really necessary to go up through the ranks. The trucks were where I got the first opportunity to go

racing at bigger racetracks. One of my first-ever truck races was at Texas, an extremely fast mile-and-a-half track. I’d never raced on anything like that. It was a lot of fun to learn about aerodynamics and downforce—the trucks were a great opportunity to get to know that stuff. Then came Nationwide, which is just Cup with a little less power. It’s tough. The competition level is extremely high. If you have any shot at Cup, you have to prove yourself against really good drivers at all the levels. The natural progression from short-track through trucks and Nationwide, with maybe the hope of making it

to Cup, is perfect for bringing the best drivers up to the front.

Climbing the NASCAR ladder takes time and patience. At age 30, Almirola is paying his dues. But after strong seasons in trucks and Nationwide, 2014 is his third full Cup season at Petty, and his light is starting to shine. This April, the day before the Southern 500 at Darlington, the track “Too Tough To Tame,” his #43 Ford qualified in 26.705 seconds at 184.145 mph—setting the all-time lap record for that storied venue’s long, long history. HC

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PHOTOGRAPHER'S PICKS

Aric Almirola, driver of the #43 Farmland Ford comes in for a pit stop during today's Hollywood Casino 400 at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS.

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PHOTOGRAPHER'S PICKS HARDCARDACCESS.COM

Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford leads the field in today's CROWN ROYAL PRESENTS THE JOHN WAYNE WALDING 400 AT THE BRICKYARD in Indianapolis, IN.

Crew members are a blur during a pit stop for Danica Patrick and her #10 GoDaddy Chevrolet in tonights ORAL-B USA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Atlanta, GA.

A wide angle view of Richmond Interational Raceway during tonight's Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond International Raceway in Richmond, VA.

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PHOTOGRAPHER'S PICKS HARDCARDACCESS.COM

A shot of the sunset during tonight's 5-HOUR ENERGY 400 BENEFITING SPECIAL OPERATIONS WARRIOR FOUNDATION at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, KS.

Joey Logano celebrates in Victory lane after winning the 18th Annual Duck Commander 500 today at Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, TX.

A view from above of Goodyear Tires teams will be using in tonights ORAL-B USA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Atlanta, GA.

Pulp frictionPulp friction GARAGE AREA CONFIDENTIAL

by TED WEST

“DRIVE IT LIKE YOU STOLE IT”: EPITAPH FOR A RACING TIRE.

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The job of a Sprint Cup racing tire is

totally impossible—and I can prove it. The NASCAR-spec Goodyear Eagle Racing Radial is a 28X10/15, which may look big compared to the wide whitewalls on your ’58 Chevy Bel Air.

But that’s not at all big as racing tires go. IndyCar front

tires are 26X10/15 and the rears are 27.5X14.5/15, yet IndyCar Firestones have the Sunday-matinee job of controlling a shadow-light 1565-lb. open-wheeler. Goodyear’s NASCAR Eagles must rein in a monster 3400-lb Sprint Cup car with 900-plus horsepower!

You could say … and we’ll say it … Cup cars are designed by people

who REALLY HATE TIRES!Consider this. At full cornering

force in banking, a right-front Eagle Radial supports 4000 lb. of pure hell for most of an hour at 180 to 200 mph. By any reasonable measure, Cup cars are “under-tired,” and any of the drivers will tell you so. More than half of every lap, the right-side tires are far beyond what any rational person

will call “adhesion.” They’re in a constant, hapless four-wheel drift that would send most IndyCar drivers into counseling.

Impossible.But I said I’d prove it. Find

a normal piece of 8½ X 11-in. notebook paper and cut it in half. Now throw away one half and look at what’s left. In square inches, that is the total footprint of one

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Now For Some Secrets

If you’re still reading, you probably came here to learn something. Maybe even a secret or two.

So we got Greg Stucker to level with us on the Real-Deal, in-race running pressures his Goodyear Eagle Racing Radials use. Pay attention, now. These are real.

For the first time anywhere, here are genuine Goodyear minimum tire pressures for three very different kinds of Sprint Cup tracks. First is Martinsville, the definitive one-mile, door-banger short track. Next, we’ll give you the pressures for the fastest of all mile-and-a-halfers—today’s race at Michigan. Then last and best of all, we’ll give you the minimum superspeedway pressures you’ll need to qualify in the top four at Daytona next February.

inflated to from 10 to 60-plus p.s.i., depending on the track, these radial-ply erasers at Michigan International this afternoon will carry 43 Cup cars sideways at 200 mph until TNT runs out of room-freshener commercials.

Even more impossible, Goodyear’s Director of Racing Tire Sales, Greg Stucker, told us the total thickness of rubber on the Eagles keeping Harvick in the park ... is 7/64ths of

an inch! Impossible. Completely

unacceptable. WHAT GOES AROUND ... GOES AROUNDThe Sprint Cup racing-tire business isn’t for the faint of heart. But at least it’s not like the bad old Tire War days. Back then, Goodyear and Firestone went at each other

Goodyear Eagle on the track. It’s about the same footprint as your Uncle Nort’s size-12 AAA Oxford. Multiply the shoe by four ... four little swatches of Goodyear rubber, going 200 mph, sideways. That’s all that is keeping Kevin Harvick from flying off Michigan’s turn one and landing in Northern Kansas.

We’re under oath here.Yet Goodyear Eagles do it all

the time! Weighing 24 lb. each,

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Maybe you’d better print this out:

MARTINSVILLELeft front Right front10 p.s.i. 23 p.s.i.Left rear Right rear10 p.s.i. 22 p.s.i.

MICHIGANLeft front Right front26 p.s.i. 57 p.s.i.Left rear Right rear26 p.s.i. 54 p.s.i.

DAYTONALeft front Right front27 p.s.i. 50 p.s.i.Left rear Right rear27 p.s.i. 48 p.s.i.

BTW, if you think the Martinsville inflations sound ridiculously low ... they’re not. Like we said, Martinsville is essentially two dragstrips connected by a couple of turns. It’s all about digging out of the hole twice a lap.

To prove the point, the factory-

out in the parking lot with tire irons and vats of molten rubber.

Today, Goodyear has NASCAR all to itself, and weekend after weekend, the blue crew arrives with truckloads of gummy new racing slicks. More than 100,000 of these sacrificial black lambs are slaughtered each year in NASCAR’s various divisions. The cost to Cup teams is $483 per tire, but the tires are leased, not sold. It’s for the best. After the drivers have done their worst, the shattered remains are returned to Goodyear to receive a decent burial.

Cup Goodyears are all 28X10/15, but they come in about 30 different rubber “compounds” and numerous construction patterns. The compounds are secretly formulated blends of oil, resin, carbon black, and “tackifiers”—as in, glue. These demon compounds are devised by shadowy chemistry geniuses in Goodyear’s Akron racing division. Compounders are well fed and exercised, but never seen in public.

Each rubber compound has

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certified minimum inflation for the Real Thing—Goodyear’s huge NHRA Top-Fueler 300-mph “Big Mo” rear drag tire—is even crazier low than Martinsville … 6.5 p.s.i.!

No, these pressures are The Deal. If you think you know something and want to add a pound or three to reduce rolling resistance and optimize top speed, you’re not alone. Especially at Daytona and Talladega. But at Martinsville, Kurt The Outlaw used just a tick more than these pressures to win, and he wasn’t kidding at all! T.W.

unusually chilly Memorial Day a few years ago turned the Indy 500 into a very expensive Figure-8 Demolition Derby. In NASCAR, no worries. Anywhere south of the Arctic Circle, 3400-lb. cars bring enough weight, friction and general aggravation to reach the needful 250-300-deg. operating temperature in the snap of a wet finger.

FOOTPRINTSGreat compounding is nothing, of course, if the tread face doesn’t get mashed down hard on the track. That is where tire-carcass construction comes in. And you’ll be glad to know this is nearly as complex and difficult as compounding.

For safety and sheer practicality,

at all NASCAR ovals longer than a mile Eagle Racing Radials have a full tubeless inner liner. This amounts to a separate mini-tire inside the slick. It allows a car to safely limp around to the pits if the outer slick has been cut down. The show must go on.

The racing tire’s main structure is composed of two elements—the carcass and the outer belt package.

its own grip and wear profile, providing exactly the right characteristics for a given track surface and set of conditions. And here we find at least one benefit of racing such a big, heavy car. Generating high enough tire temperatures for the rubber compound to behave effectively can be a serious problem in light Indy cars on cold days; an

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TRUE GRITTo provide fast, drivable, safe racing tires, Goodyear constantly researches Sprint Cup’s 25 vastly different tracks. And if 25 different tracks doesn’t sound complicated enough, each individual track surface is constantly changing, as well.

Inevitably, every track must be repaved from time to time, smoothing it and completely changing its grip level. New pavement, with its fresh-laid, unworn texture, provides higher grip, requiring adjusting the tire compound. As the surface wears and weathers, grip declines. Seasons pass. Bumps and anomalies form. These changes dictate altering tire compound and construction to deliver the best levels of grip, compliance and tread stabilization.

Some NASCAR track surfaces are fundamentally more abrasive than others. To varying degrees and for different reasons, Atlanta, Fontana, Kentucky, and Dover (which is concrete,

not asphalt) provide a grittier surface than most. Goodyear has developed high-tech photographic technology for measuring and analyzing these differences. By contrast, tracks like Charlotte, Homestead, and Michigan present

smoother surfaces, thanks to the very tight mix of asphalt used. It’s tempting to conclude, then, that all these relatively smooth tracks will be satisfied with one tire compound and construction.

Not at all.

The carcass is composed of multiple plies, its primary purpose being load bearing. Supporting 4000 lb. at the right-front corner in full cornering is no mean task.

The radial-belt package is vital to positioning and stabilizing the tire’s Uncle Nort-sized footprint on the track at speed. Depending on the steepness of a track’s banking, the tightness of its turns, and its relative turn speeds, the belt package is tuned to provide good grip by ensuring firmness at the tread face, as well as providing efficiently low rolling resistance.

These demands vary widely, ranging from a grip-crazy little one-mile double drag-strip like Martinsville, all the way up to free-rolling superspeedway aerodromes like Daytona and Talladega ... and the fastest of all NASCAR tracks, today’s Michigan International! (You could look it up.)

Firm, stable construction is like o.j. in the morning. Don’t leave the garages without it.

GARAGE AREA CONFIDENTIAL PULP FRICTION HARDCARDACCESS.COM

High-tech Goodyear cameras capture surface textures one-

thirtieth the width of a human hair at Atlanta Motor Speedway (above)

and Kansas Speedway (below).

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• Group 1: Daytona, Talladega • Group 2: Charlotte,

Chicagoland, Darlington, Homestead, Kansas, Las Vegas, Michigan, Texas

• Group 3: Atlanta, Fontana, Dover, Kentucky

• Group 4: Bristol, Indianapolis, Iowa, Phoenix, Pocono

• Group 5: Gateway, New Hampshire, Richmond

• Group 6: Martinsville• Group 7: Sonoma, Watkins Glen

That sounds fairly orderly, if you don’t look close. But there are all kinds of things skittering around behind the curtain. For instance, consider lumping together two venues as different as Bristol and Indianapolis. They have qualities in common, but each will likely require yet another knock on the compounders’ door for a new solution.

Occasionally, of course, as at Michigan today, Goodyear is able to piggy-back; they will use the

same right-side tires they race at Kansas. But the seven categories in the list above are only broad strokes. Most venues, each evolving and declining in its own way, require careful attention from the seasoned eye of a Goodyear engineer working in Cup a long, long time.

MY KINGDOM FOR A TIRE!Wandering around the garage area gnawing on a bratwurst, I saw this

Due to their relatively tight turns, the smooth tracks at Charlotte, Homestead, and Michigan, as well as Chicagoland, generate some of the hottest tire temperatures in Cup. Michigan’s 200 mph-plus speeds, combining good grip with relatively tight turns, make for the hottest tread temps of all. You might think speedy 2.5-mile Daytona and Talladega would generate the highest temperatures, but actually, superspeedway cars are set up for low rolling resistance, reducing tire heat in favor of peak speed.

The “hot” tracks at Charlotte, Homestead, Chicagoland and Michigan require a compound engineered to maintain good wear and firm lateral-acceleration qualities, i.e., good grip, at high running temps. And that means a call to the rubber compounders in Akron for a new magical potion.

The complexity of the NASCAR racing-tire business is impressive. Goodyear groups its Cup tire work into seven loosely formed categories:

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guy pacing back and forth inside a little fortress of tires he’d built for himself. It was made of dozens of mounted Goodyear racing tires, a stack of two here, a stack of four there, four more over there. He’d walk round and round, thinking hard all the while, like a busy small boy counting his toys.

So I asked him what he was doing.

Better still, he told me. He was A.J. Allmendinger’s tire

specialist, and he was “building his sets.” Just a half hour earlier, it would have meant nothing to me. But I had been talking to Greg Stucker at Goodyear all about this.

First, though, a question. Have you ever wondered why Darrell Waltrip is always yammering about Dale Jr. taking an extra pound of air in his left-rear or right-front tire at the next pit stop? Can an extra pound really make that much difference? Does it change the tire’s shape? Will it change the running temperature?

The grip? What!Greg had the answer. A tire is a

tire, first and foremost—but it is also a spring. And adding a pound of pressure to a tire during a race is a simple, fast way to add about ten lb. to the spring rate of one corner of your car in mid-race and re-tuning the chassis!

In fact, every Eagle Racing Radial has a built-in Spring Rate Number written right on the tire’s sticker. It’s a couple of inches below the “D Code,” indicating in Goodyear code the tire’s construction and compound combination and the casing mold used. At every race, tires with a wide range of spring rates are allotted to each team. This allows the tire specialist to build four-tire sets with different overall spring rates, while at the same time maintaining the correct relative spring rate within each set.

Allmendinger’s guy was segregating his four-tire sets by overall spring rates. He kept the

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It Was A Very Goodyear...

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the left-rear tire. As the rear wheels roll forwards, driven through a locked differential, the right-rear travels slightly farther than the left-rear. The effect is to make the chassis “want” to veer left.

Coming into a turn at speed, then, the car is already preparing to turn

left in a stable, smooth transition. This is vital, because turns take the most time in each lap and are the most difficult dynamic element. Stagger ensures gentler turn-in, vital to good turn speed and high exit speed coming onto the next straightaway. And on many mile-

relative spring rates between a set of four tires constant, then built another four-tire set starting with a lower overall spring rate—maintaining the same relative spring rates. Set after set were built, each with a lower overall spring rate. As the race progressed and more rubber was laid down on the track, the progressively softer sets could be used, raising the car’s speed on the increasingly grippy track.

Easy!Well, not so easy. He said the

end-game could be really dicey. The softest sets towards the end were sometimes [[too]] soft and could slow the car just when peak speed was imperative.

Nobody ever said Cup was a barrel of laughs.

FACTS, FIGGERS, AND CONUNDRUMSCup tires do a lot more than just stick to the ground. One critical function they provide is “stagger”— the rolling circumference of the right-rear tire is purposely made minutely greater (about ¾-in.) than

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and-a-half tracks, the straights aren’t really “straight” but mildly banked lefts. Without stagger, turn speeds would be lower, tire wear greater, and driver effort higher.

Another handling element assumed by the tires concerns camber change—the all-important

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rightwards and down. The right-side suspension is compressed, and as this happens, the suspension arms’ built-in geometry mechanically rotates the right-front camber angle from negative (splayed out at the foot) closer to neutral, or vertical. Now the tire tread is forced face down on the track, where the tire compound will generate maximum lateral friction and grip. This grip will resist the sideways force in the turn, helping hold the car’s cornering line.

Released out of the turn then, the

loading on the suspension lightens and the process is reversed. The suspension arms drop and the right-front tire rides up to negative camber again, riding on its inner shoulder. This reduces rolling resistance, freeing the chassis to accelerate onto the straight. Front suspensions are allowed liberal camber settings to suit Cup’s variously flatter or more steeply banked tracks.

But in 2013, NASCAR’s rear-camber rule was rewritten to allow

some negative camber, as well—2-2.5-deg. Smoother transitional behavior and incremental increases in rear grip are gained rolling into the corner, because the inside shoulder of the right-rear tire tread provides added firmness at maximum lateral loads. This comes at the cost of some drop-off in peak grip. Coming off the turn under power, the right-rear wheel’s load lightens, returning to slightly negative camber, rolling freely onto the straight. It’s a win/win. HC

verticality/non-verticality of the tire in relation to the track surface. At zero camber, a tire is perfectly vertical, while negative camber indicates the bottom of the wheel and tire are splayed outwards from the vertical as in an inverted vee.

In NASCAR independent front suspensions, the camber angle of the right-front wheel at rest will change dramatically when it is loaded in a left turn in banking, say, at 160 mph. Centrifugal force makes the chassis roll, pressing

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