Montreal

[tkj24]

Eight nations represented
on entry list for Montreal
JIM UTTER'S BUSCH SERIES NOTEBOOK
By JIM UTTER - The Charlotte Observer
Related Content

FileThe NASCAR Busch Series’ debut north of the border will give fans in Canada this weekend a chance to witness a talented mix of drivers from around the globe.

Drivers from eight different countries are entered in Saturday’s inaugural NAPA 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve road course in Montreal (3:30 p.m. Eastern, ESPN2), including eight Canadians.

Leading the “home” team this weekend is Montreal’s own Patrick Carpentier, making his NASCAR debut, and road racing ace and fellow Canadian Ron Fellows.

“It is entirely appropriate that NASCAR’s first race be held on a race track named after Canada’s most famous and likely most gifted racing driver this country has ever produced,” said Fellows, who is driving the No. 33 Chevrolet for Kevin Harvick Inc.

“Having watched and idolized Gilles there was always a little extra adrenalin flowing when driving on that circuit.”

The United States’ contingent contains 27 drivers. Busch driver Marcos Ambrose is from Australia while Michel Jourdain Jr., who won at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Champ Car competition in 2003, and Jorge Goeters, both hail from Mexico.

Italy will be represented by Max Papis; Sweden by Nic Johnssen; England by Andy Pilgrim; and Venezuela by Alex Garcia.

In addition, seven Nextel Cup series regulars plan to run in Saturday’s race in Montreal as well as Sunday’s Cup event at Pocono. They are Kevin Harvick, Carl Edwards, David Ragan, Jeff Burton, Greg Biffle, Robby Gordon and David Reutimann.

With the travel to and from Montreal several substitute drivers are on standby to practice and perhaps qualify the Cup drivers’ cars. Auggie Vidovich is on call for Ragan; Brandon Miller will sub for Harvick; Wimmer for Burton; Casey Atwood for Biffle; John Andretti for Edwards; and Mark Green for Reutimann.

Notes


In one change from the Cup side, the Busch series will compete in the rain, if necessary, in upcoming road-course events at Montreal and Watkins Glen, N.Y.

Goodyear will have rain tires on hand for both events and NASCAR officials said they will do whatever possible to make sure the events run on the day scheduled. Cars will also feature windshield wipers, defrosters and rear lights.

Ragan continues to lead the series rookie standings. He has 197 points, followed by Marcos Ambrose (172) and Juan Pablo Montoya (162).


The purse for Saturday’s race is $2,075,651, the third this season in excess of $2 million and the eighth-richest race purse in series history.

 

[Magnethead]

I can see rain tires being durable enough to last at montreal, there's not a whole lot of elevation change, banking, or high g-force turns. Watkins glen is completely contrary..i dont see how a rain tire would last there, even in busch.

 

[tkj24]

NASCAR’s Rain Tire

By Dick Kelley
Photography: Ade Ketchum, Wayne Keister, Kristen Block, George Tiedeman, Goodyear Tire

For Phil Holmer, it was the most amazing day he ever witnessed in racing.

Holmer, Goodyear Tire’s marketing manager for stock cars, chuckles as he recalls the first day NASCAR put rain tires on Winston Cup cars. The Winston Cup teams were at the Suzuka, Japan, road course for the 1997 NASCAR post-season exhibition race.

"I have never experienced a day before or since that was as wild as that day," says Holmer, "and I’ve been around a few years."

Prior to the Suzuka event, the race organizer had approached both NASCAR and Goodyear with a challenge--could Goodyear produce a rain tire for the Winston Cup cars? Worried that any weather cancellation would add prohibitive costs to the event, the organizer wanted a guarantee of racing, rain or shine.


"For Goodyear, it was, ’no problem’," says Holmer. "Having a bit of experience in the rain in Trans Am and sports car racing, we found a suitable construction and made the tire. Because we didn’t have an appropriate mold due to cost factors, we sent the batch of 600 to 700 tires to England to be hand-grooved. They came back and were then shipped to Japan for the event. We mounted a set for each team to give them an idea of what they had to deal with."

And that’s as far as it went. No rain for the weekend meant that the tires stayed in the shipping containers and then returned to the States. When the Suzuka race came around for , it was back in the containers and off to Japan.


"By this time, those tires definitely were eligible for a free flight upgrade," laughs Holmer.

"The first practice session in was dry," says Holmer. "But that evening, I deciphered the local weather report enough to see that rain was on the way for the morning. We released a mounted set to each team, watched as the crews made sure they had fender clearance, and then waited."

That’s when the fun started.

"Rusty (Wallace) and Mark (Martin) were standing next to me on pit road. The rain was light, but coming down steady. Everyone was just hanging around, waiting to see who might go out," remembers Holmer. "There was this fella driving for Dick Mitchley’s team over there, an Australian named Jim Richards. He had won a few Bathurst 1000s, the big Australian sedan endurance road race held on a mountainous circuit. He was known as the ’Rain Man.’

"For him, this was natural. He jumps in, roars down the pit lane and starts putting in times right away. The pit straight there is a bit like the Glen’s--it rolls down into a fast turn. Richards comes blasting down the straight the first time with the spray boiling out, and Rusty and Mark just look at each other as if to say, ’who is this guy?’ The next time around and they’re looking to see his times, and the times are beginning to look quick. He flashes past a third time and that’s it, they’re all running for their cars. It’s as if a gauntlet had been thrown down."


The quiet pit lane was suddenly barking with the exhausts of Cup cars in the hunt.

"It didn’t take them but a few laps to adjust," says Holmer of the Cup drivers. "A few minutes to find a rhythm and they were off. They all stayed out the entire session. And the times dropped every lap.

"Then, at the end of practice, they’re all jumping out and laughing and joking. I’ve never seen Winston Cup drivers having such a good time. It’s as if they were kids again."

When it remained raining for qualifying, there was no hesitation. A second set was mounted and the fun started again.

"Everyone stayed out the entire time," recalls Holmer. "The times kept dropping even though the rain picked up quite a bit. The times ended up being only a few seconds slower than the dry times. A Roush crew chief (with Trans Am experience) came by and told me it was the best rain tire he had ever seen."

The teams even chose to continue running during that afternoon’s wet ’Happy Hour’, interested in getting as much rain testing as they could. Following the positive Suzuka experience, NASCAR asked Goodyear to finalize a road course construction for Winston Cup, Busch, and the Craftsman Trucks. Unlike the hand carved test tires, this time the tires were molded, making the pattern exactly the same for each tire, helping to insure consistency lap-to-lap and stabilizing performance gains under race circumstances.


Borrowing from their proven aquachannel technology, Goodyear has produced a new Winston Cup tire: The Goodyear Eagle Road Course Radial rain tire that is dual-channeled with a directional tread.

"The channels incorporate an asymmetrical design, with sharp edges on the inside walls of the two side channels and a sloping edge on the outside walls," states Tony Freund, Goodyear’s lead engineer for stock car development.

In selecting the compound for the tires, the tire development group used the recent changes to Sears Point as a basis for standardizing its wet road course tires under a single specification.

"The track layouts at both facilities feature primarily right-hand turns, which means the car is working the left side tires the most," says Freund. "Therefore, we use a slightly tougher tread compound on the left side tires than we do on the right sides to enable the lefts to handle the increased work requirement."

The new rain tires were officially supplied to Winston Cup teams for the first time at this year’s Sears Point race on June 25-27, with wet tires also going that same weekend to the NASCAR Busch and Craftsman Truck paddocks at Watkins Glen.

This bi-coastal schedule also substantially increased the number of tires Goodyear made available, with more than 3,000 wet tires now being prepared for road course events at any time; 1,200 being dedicated to Winston Cup useage.


Since there is no set stagger in road course tires, the new wet tire’s circumference is standard at 87.4 inches. Pressures are set at 23 psi for right and left fronts. Both rears are set at 20 psi. Tire codes are D5596 for left side and D5592 for the right side. Tread wear is determined by ambient temperature, depth of track surface water, and heat buildup in the much softer compound, with tires naturally lasting longer the wetter they remain.

NASCAR Busch Grand National and Craftsman Trucks received a slightly different sized tire for the Lysol 200 and Bully Hill Vineyards 150 events at the 2.45-mile Glen. Tire circumference is 873/8 inches. Inflation remains the same, but tire codes are different--the left side is designated as D5690. Right sides are coded as D5604. The Busch teams had 800 tires on hand, while the Craftsman Trucks were allocated 600.

It was Craftsman Truck’s privilege to inaugurate NASCAR’s first venture into the wet in this country at the Watkins Glen event. Both qualifying sessions were rainy, with the second session providing the most data for the engineers.

"[The Eagle rain tire] performed pretty much how we expected it to, but there’s still a little bit of an unknown with them," stated Billy Hodges, Goodyear’s tire technician for the Craftsman Series. "No. 1, the racing surface at Watkins Glen has recently been repaved and resealed, and No. 2, we probably need a longer run in wet conditions to get a proper read on the tires."


The last chance this year for Winston Cup cars to cross paths with Mother Nature (at this writing) is the Frontier at the Glen, August 15. Hearing some of the drivers recall their Japanese adventures, it seems tires are the least of their worries.

"I had the fear of God in me when it started to rain during qualifying over in Suzuka," says Rusty Wallace. "But once we started, it was not bad--I felt comfortable on the Goodyear Eagle rain tires. The biggest problem we had to deal with was poor visibility due to foggy windshields."

Mark Martin agrees. "I feel comfortable qualifying in the rain, especially with my experience in the rain and testing Goodyear’s wet tire," he says. "However, I think it will be difficult to actually race in the rain, due to the spray of 43 cars on the road course at the same time. The low visibility caused by the spray as well as foggy windshields would make it very difficult to race."

Being true engineering professionals, you can count on the Cup teams to have their fogging problems solved in short order. Then, the next time you’re enjoying a Winston Cup road course race, try sticking around when the skies open up. Word has it you’ll see a lot of smiling faces through those clear windshields, belonging to drivers reveling in lots of wet grip from their Goodyear Eagle rains and rediscovering the excitement they had in their earlier days.

You’ll also be a part of a new page in NASCAR’s long history--this time... Winston in the wet.


Goodyear now delivers an additional 1,200 rain tires to each Winston Cup road race event, with the Busch and Craftsman trucks receiving 800 and 600 tires respectively.


Rain delays at NASCAR road course events are history now that Goodyear has introduced its Eagle Road Course Radial rain tire for the Winston Cup, Busch, and Craftsman series.



Andy Houston’s Cat Rental Chevy Craftsman truck helps inaugurate Goodyear’s Eagle rain tire at Watkins Glen during the rain-soaked practice for this year’s Bully Hill Vineyards 150.



Mike Skinner’s Lowe’s Monte Carlo at speed in 1997, during rain practice for the NASCAR exhibition event in Suzuka, Japan. The Winston Cup cars used hand-cut Goodyear prototype rain tires for both practice and qualifying.



Goodyear’s original prototype hand-cut Eagle Radial Road Course rain tire compared to its standard dry track brother.



Ron Barfield’s Craftsman truck plows through streaming water entering Watkins Glen’s turn 11.



Goodyear’s new aquachannel-derived Eagle Radial rain tire incorporates dual channel technology featuring a directional, asymmetrical tread design, with sharp edges on the inside walls of the two side channels and a sloping edge on the outside walls.



Mark Martin during qualifying in Suzuka. He feels confident with the new rain tires’ performance...less so with the low visibility due to fogging and the spray of 43 cars under wheel-to-wheel racing conditions.



Seen here at Suzuka in , the Winston Cup exhibition road racing event became a laboratory for methods of clearing fogged windshields and visors as well as for proving the abilities of the new Eagle Radial rain tire.

 

[Magnethead]

i know thats an old article but nice read. I think last year they skipped qualifying due to rain didnt they, and they didnt want to try the rain tires even though they were on hand?

 

[WNY24Fan]

That was a fun read! All I remember is RAIN RAIN RAIN when I was at the Glen for the Grand Prix. COLD RAIN. OCTOBER RAIN.....BRRRRR... . nothing a little amaretto didn't cure. ROFL I think I remember some sun....but that was a long time ago and well, I was drinking amaretto. heh heh