Notes scribbled on my cocktail napkin 8/8/05
GOODYEAR'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE. Let's examine the facts. The first and perhaps most important one is that Goodyear is a multi-national company with assets in the billions and billions of dollars. No matter how much a jury might award Mrs. Russell, it will have little if any effect on that company's financial bottom line. If the CEO, CFO or the board of directors at Goodyear seriously thought that might happen there'd be a suit with a blank check at Mrs. Russell's lawyer's door in the morning. My opinion is that the only real concern Goodyear Tire and Rubber has about this pending lawsuit is the potential bad PR which at most could affect sales of racing tires and that drag racing tire sales may be one of the smallest channels in the company's revenue stream. Second, everybody needs to understand that Goodyear isn't in the drag racing tire business sole for R&D purposes. That's a small part of the equation, but the real reason they are involved in drag racing as the official tire manufacturer and supplier of a spec tire for the fuel classes is MONEY! Please make no mistake about it, dear readers and racers, Goodyear makes a nice profit on each and every tire they sell and rightfully so. The day they don't make money building and selling drag tires is the day they will be gone and it won't take a lawsuit for that to happen; a guy wearing a $1500 custom-tailored business suit will make that happen. Now as to the fear that if Goodyear quits making Top Fuel tires no one will step in to replace them. From a historic point of view that proposition just doesn't pass my own reality check. In my thirty years of covering all kinds of auto racing and sanctioning bodies I've seen many, many tire manufacturers cease to support a series. Major series such as F-1, NASCAR, USAC, IRL/CART and many regional racing series have all had spec tires and "official" tire manufacturers that have withdrawn from competition and to my knowledge that action has never resulted in any sanctioning body or race disappearing from the scene. Should, for any reason, Goodyear decide to bail out of drag racing you can bet that another tire company will step in to take their spot in the marketplace. If Goodyear were to get out of drag racing can you imagine the possible ad campaign from the company that would replace them? "When the NHRA needed a tire that could stand and deliver on the fastest, most powerful cars on the planet and brand X couldn't make that tire they turned to the Gumbo Tire Company and we made them the tire they needed." I don't believe the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company is going to
opt out of the racing tire business any time soon for the same reasons
nitro racing isn't going away: First, it's an ego thing and then,
of course, there is the money. Instead of making racers who put on tires that were a full inch wider than the prescribed limit of 10.5 inches of tread take them off or go home, the promoters caved and now we have two versions of the ten-wide class. The real Ten-wide class that requires 10.5-inch wide tires and something called 10.5(W) or "Outlaw Ten-wides" where a tire that the manufacturer puts 10.5 on the sidewall but admits the tread is an inch wider. The cars with the real 10.5 inch wide tread run in the mid-sevens. Those with the 11.5 are knocking on the six-second door. Here's the problem. The fans, most of media and sponsors can't tell the difference between the two so, given a choice of who to watch or sponsor, human nature dictates that the faster, quicker cars win. History has proven over and over that given the option of wider and stickier tires racers will almost always build cars that go as quick and fast as that tire allows. History has also proven that without tire or engine restrictions cars inevitably cost more to build, maintain and race, and the more expensive the cars become to build and race the fewer are built and raced. I'm suggesting that promoters stop this trend now or be prepared to watch the healthy car count and growth the class enjoys now become a thing of the past. I've watched that happened to Pro Stock, the nitro class and Pro Mod and it will happen in the ten-wide class if you let it. Oh and one more thing, DRO will no longer refer to a car in this
magazine that has a rear tire that is 11.5 inches wide as a ten-wide
or an outlaw ten-wide. We'll call them what they are, Outlaw 12-inch
tire cars. I will also speculate that if Bruton Smith comes to the conclusion that he will not be able to buy the NHRA, why wouldn't he at least look at buying the IHRA. He could use his huge marketing company (SMI), his contacts in the TV industry and his relationship with some of the world's largest companies to take the current IHRA tour to a higher visibility, especially if he adds his three NHRA facilities to the circuit as his current contracts with the NHRA expire. Smith has made no secret of the fact he needs to expand the publicly owned and traded SMI Corporation. I have no hard evidence this will happen but I think it is a possibility.
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