Weekend That Was: RIR (cont'd)

Tired of no tires

Todd Berrier, crew chief for Harvick, said that if NASCAR wants teams to start getting a better handle on the Car of Tomorrow, they should go back to letting them have Goodyear tires to test on. Prior to last season, NASCAR began a program where the Goodyear tires teams use during races are leased to teams; unused tires are turned in after each race.

Teams used to have stockpiles of Goodyear tires that they had hoarded, so they could take them to tests. But with those rapidly disappearing from the face of the Earth and NASCAR not allowing teams to replenish those supplies, teams are left to run tests on other types of tires that do not give them the data they need to translate to race days, according to Berrier.

"I feel about the same about the COT that I've pretty much felt all along," Berrier said after Harvick finished eighth at Richmond. "Over the winter, we tested these things a lot on 2003 tires. We used them up. Now we have no more tires, other than B.F. Goodrich's or Hoosiers or something like that. We can go places and test and try to make the thing better, but until you come to the racetrack under the same circumstances that you're going to race under, it's not going to do you that much good.

"The tires are the most important thing on the car, and we can't get anything even remotely close to resembling what we race on. So you take your best educated guess. I think we can make this car a lot better for everybody. I think you'd hear a lot less complaining about this car if they'd just give us some tires to test with that resemble what we're racing with. But I guess that's somebody else's decision to make."

Berrier also contended that it would help other teams catch up with the Hendrick stable in terms of competition.

"I'm sure the more tires you give us, we're going to get better and better," Berrier said. "I don't know that [Hendrick] is light years ahead of any of us. They have won races. You have to give them that. But we've led every race and been in contention to win every race as well. Circumstances just haven't fallen our way."

Asked if it seemed like it was just common sense to have NASCAR start releasing the types of tires for tests that are used on race day, considering teams are running a new type of racecar in the COT events, Berrier replied: "It would be common sense to us, being racers. I don't know if it's common sense to them as the sanctioning body. I look at things so different, I don't know. I think if you polled the 50, 60 cars that show up for a race any given weekend, they would all jump at the chance to get tires. We'd do whatever it took to get tires. We'd pay $5,000 a set for tires -- but we can't.

"They're going to have a better show when they start releasing some tires and you can go to some places and run your racecars. Right now all the things you think you should have done better at Richmond, next time you go back to a Loudon or a Richmond or a Phoenix, you're going to try to apply them as best you can. That's all you can do. It's not like we can stop in Iowa and test, because you've got to go on a Hoosier tire and it isn't anything close to this."

Quotable

Berrier knew his driver, Harvick, would be hot over a pit-road mishap that could have been avoided and appeared to cost the No. 29 team a shot at winning in Richmond (watch video).

"He's going to get upset over that kind of stuff -- always," Berrier said. "That's just his nature. But that's a good problem to have. I'd rather have to calm him down than have to pick him up."

Pit stops

• Teams pay an estimated $400 per tire now for their Goodyears, so when Berrier says teams would pay $5,000 for a set, that's about $3,400 over what they would usually pay. Yet he seemed serious. When will NASCAR figure out that even if they try to save team owners money one way, they're going to continue to find other ways to spend every dime their sponsors give them? That's why the rich likely will always get richer in this sport, no matter what NASCAR tries to do to level the playing field.

• The way driver Clint Bowyer is starting to run in the Busch Series, it's only a matter of time until he starts winning at the next level, too. He is the real deal (watch video).

• A couple of long Cup streaks came to an end at Richmond. Driver Ken Schrader failed to qualify, ending a string of 44 consecutive starts at the track. And Dale Jarrett had his string of 424 starts in a row snapped when he failed to qualify in his No. 44 Toyota. It was the first race Jarrett had missed since October of 1994 at the old North Wilkesboro track in North Carolina.