Dale Earnhardt Jr. calls attention to massive concern for Goodyear in NASCAR, why fans should be grateful

Tire fall-off was the story of this past Saturday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway. After a series of underwhelming races at the 0.75-mile short track, NASCAR and Goodyear brought a tire combination that promised to deliver better racing.

NASCAR and Goodyear brought the same tire combination used at Bowman Gray Stadium, Martinsville Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway earlier this season. The right-side tire was the identical “option” used at Richmond last season, while the left-side tire was slightly softer. This particular combination was introduced at Martinsville last November. It was designed to create significant fall-off over the course of a run, and that it did.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. praised Goodyear for its efforts during Tuesday’s “Dale Jr. Download.” Earnhardt said that other tire manufacturers aren’t always willing to intentionally produce a tire that blows apart quickly and yet, Goodyear stepped up.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. praises Goodyear

“It’s not in Goodyear’s best interest to make a tire that’s failing,” Earnhardt said. “I’ve read about tire manufacturers that aren’t in F1, some of these big players in the tire manufacturing world were asked why they don’t want to be in some of the bigger series in motorsports. They said they want us to make a tire that degrades over the course of the race, and that’s not good for our business.

“If you’re a world tire manufacturer and you’re trying to sell f*cking street tires to millions and billions of people… I don’t love [the excuse], but I think we need to say thank you Goodyear, we appreciate you for being understanding that the fans can tell the difference between if I see your tire struggling on Sunday, that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna go buy it for my truck on Monday. That’s what tire manufacturers are afraid of. If they have a bad day at the racetrack and drivers get out and go, ‘F*ck this tire, what a terrible tire,’ then nobody’s going to go buy their shit at the store.

“That’s why they’re here; they’re here to sell f*cking tires to the consumers, not to make racing awesome. That’d be a good byproduct of their involvement is to make racing better, but at the top of the list is selling tires to consumers.”

Tire fall-off was the story in NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond

It was clear the team that played the best tire strategy was going to win the race. That ended up being Austin Dillon and the No. 3 team, who took control of the race in Stage 3 and clinched their spot in the postseason.

Earnhardt didn’t have expectations for Richmond. It ended up being an entertaining race, and he believes Goodyear deserves a lot of the credit.

“Congratulations but thank you, Goodyear, for going the extra mile, being aggressive and doing something that you didn’t really have to do,” Earnhardt said. “Goodyear could have said we’re making the tire we want to make, figure it out and they could have left that hard ass tire where we would have had a shit race.

“I was not expecting the race to be as good as it was, I’ll eat a little bit of crow. … Son bitch wore out; you had guys that could run over each other in the corner if they got mad at each other — that’s all I want.”