Goodyear to use different tires at Texas

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Goodyear to use different tires at Texas

Goodyear officials will not use the controversial Atlanta tire at Texas Motor Speedway for the Samsung 500 on April 6.

TMS president Eddie Gossage said Stu Grant, Goodyear's director of racing, told him they will bring the same tire the NASCAR teams used on the 1.5-mile oval in 2007.

Tires became a major issue at Atlanta Motor Speedway last weekend when Tony Stewart and other drivers criticized the hard tires used for the Kobalt Tools 500.

Atlanta is a 1.5-mile, high-banked oval, similar to Texas Motor Speedway, so Gossage was pleased that Goodyear will use last year's tire compound at TMS next month.

"That tire produced two of the best races of the 2007 season," Gossage said. "We had a last-lap pass by Jeff Burton to win the spring race and a side-by-side battle for the win by Jimmie Johnson and Matt Kenseth in the fall race."

But those races were run in the previous car design. The April race at TMS will be the first in the new car.

Drivers Clint Bowyer and Juan Pablo Montoya participated in a Goodyear test at TMS in January using the 2007 tire on the new car.

"Clint said the car was drivable all over the racetrack," Gossage said. "Goodyear officials tell me they've made adjustments for the new car. I trust their judgment."

But Gossage would still like to give all the Cups teams an extra day of practice on the Thursday before the Samsung 500. NASCAR official say they have no plans to do so.

"I still hope they change their mind," Gossage said. "It appears obvious to me after Atlanta and Las Vegas that the teams still are trying to get their arms around the new car on these 1.5-mile tracks.

"We should err on the side of caution, but we didn't get an open test. We pay NASCAR the biggest sanctioning fee in the sport and they never give us a test," Gossage said.

[82 5A State Champs]

That's good. The tire in question used in Atlanta made for a very boring race. There was no side by side racing, and at one point there were only 11 cars on the lead lap. The race at Texas should be a good one, if last year's race was any indication.