Race tire development is a process that never ends, because striving to build something better, whether it's racecars, the tires they ride on or the engines that power them is an endeavor that never rests.

A good argument could be made that frustration over the pace of development, whether it's a stickier, more durable tire; a more powerful engine or a more adaptable chassis -- or even a better coffee maker -- is also a constant.

So it should be no surprise that the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company's recent efforts to develop and build tires for NASCAR's premier series would come under intense scrutiny and at times, equally intense criticism.

The early March weekend at Atlanta was probably the low point, when Goodyear brought a "safer" tire -- in effect a harder tire that was different than what Cup teams had tested four months earlier in the first en masse test of the new car at an intermediate racetrack -- but was the result of data collected at tests in August, October and December 2007.

Tony Stewart was the most vocal critic, taking his outrage to a virtually personal level against the manufacturer even after he finished second in the race; while he was joined in his concerns by winner Kyle Busch and third place Dale Earnhardt Jr., among others.

Hendrick Motorsports' two-time defending Cup champion crew chief Chad Knaus struggled to lead his driver, Jimmie Johnson, to a woeful 13th place finish that day but he still defended the tire supplier against the continuing challenge the new chassis has presented.

"You know, I think that's where everybody's wrong," Knaus said of the critics. "It's not the tire -- it's the car. It's just the car. The car asks too much out of the tire. There's only five things that hold the car on the racetrack: That's the four tires and the downforce.

"The car has no downforce and Goodyear has to build an extremely hard tire just to make the tire live because there's no downforce on the car. That makes everybody bad-mouth Goodyear and it's just not fair to them, because Goodyear actually does a very good job."

Considering a lot of people have been bad-mouthing the performance of the new car, Goodyear's recent work has about kept pace with Sprint Cup Series' team's adaptation to NASCAR's new chassis that, compared to the previously used, and well-developed version possesses a higher center of gravity, radically different weight distribution and far less downforce.

All that adds up to more potential stress on tires and in turn, potentially fluctuating blood pressure for owners, drivers, crew chiefs and crewmen at NASCAR's highest levels.

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Drivers are holding their breath waiting to see the type of tire used this week at Texas.

Texas is next

This weekend's Samsung 500 at the fast, 1.5-mile Texas Motor Speedway is the latest test for Goodyear and the teams; as it's the first intermediate speedway teams will see since racing Atlanta.

Goodyear tested at Texas in January, with drivers Juan Montoya and Clint Bowyer. The left side tire is the same tread compound used in 2007 and a revised construction used previously this season at Las Vegas, Bristol and Atlanta.

A Goodyear statement said the right side tires use the same construction raced in 2007 "with a slightly reformulated tread compound to provide a wear improvement for the aging Texas surface and the tougher right side conditions of the [new car]." To whit, the right side tires are harder.

Ryan Newman, a Texas winner, did test this weekend's tire at Darlington, so he has some insight into what to expect.

"Goodyear speculated that they might be able to run the Texas tire at Darlington [but] that didn't quite work out like they wanted to," Newman said. "The tire itself feels like a pretty good tire. Obviously, we didn't test it at Texas, but I don't think it will be like the situation in Atlanta.

"Again, the situation in Atlanta was a tire that didn't feel good, but it was safe. So they got one of the two things ideal."

Johnson, who has fluctuated in and out of the top 10 in the standings this season as he and his team battle the new car, said tires were the least of his concerns coming into the weekend at a track where he's a former winner; and that he could offer no comparison to how Texas' race conditions would compare to Atlanta's.

"I don't have a clue, and we typically don't know what tire we are going to be on too far in advance or what the changes are going to do to the car," Johnson said. "So I don't know what to expect. We don't spend a lot of time focused on it, because we can't do a damn thing about it. We just show up, bolt them on and go."

His Hendrick teammate, Jeff Gordon, who hasn't won at Texas, isn't worried, either -- at least not about tires.

"I don't really know [about tires]," Gordon said. "None of us tested there. I didn't test there, so I didn't really get a recap on what's going on there other than I heard good things. That track is not as abrasive as Atlanta and so I feel like Goodyear is pretty confident with what they're taking there.

"I'm much more concerned with just our set-up and what we have with this car at that track because we've never been there with this car."

Kasey Kahne, another former Texas winner, said as far as he could tell, Goodyear was heading in the right direction -- though Friday morning's wet, chilly weather created another spin on things.

"If they stick to a tire similar to last year's tire, I don't think they'll be too far off," Kahne said. "But it's tough. I mean, if I knew [more about tires], I'd build tires -- I don't really have a clue on how all that stuff works.

"I know that they don't want to blow out right fronts and they don't want us hitting the walls head on, but they want a tire that can grip and can race. They just need to come up with that.

"I think they're going to work hard to do it after Tony Stewart kind of let 'em have it after Atlanta."

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Teams can adjust air pressure and suspensions, causing the tires to react differently on each car.

The test never rests

Goodyear did address Stewart's concerns in a statement after the Atlanta weekend that dictated some of the manufacturer's ongoing philosophy, saying "Even though both Goodyear and NASCAR were satisfied with the tire's performance in Atlanta, if the drivers are not happy, then Goodyear's not happy.

"Now that we know how this tire combination performed, we'll go back and retest for the fall race. We have the same goal as the drivers and NASCAR: To put the safest, best performing tires on these cars.

"There will be many instances this year when the new car is on a particular track for the first time, as was the case in Atlanta. That makes it tougher than usual to get a read on how the tires will perform. But if there is ever any doubt about the recommendation, we will always err on the conservative side."

NASCAR president Mike Helton appeared on Stewart's Sirius NASCAR Radio show, "Tony Stewart Live" after Atlanta and indicated Goodyear and NASCAR were paying attention.

"The one thing Goodyear does is they look, they listen and they respond and I don't expect them to do anything different in [the case of Atlanta]," Helton said. "NASCAR has been on Goodyear to harden [the tires] up a little bit so they would be durable and keep the corner speeds down with this new chassis."

Goodyear's tire testing and development process is exhaustive and virtually non-stop; especially when it's considered that the Sprint Cup Series visits 22 racetracks; ranging from the .526-mile Martinsville Speedway short track, to recently resurfaced speedways at Darlington, Bristol, Las Vegas and Talladega to a couple versions of road courses.

“

Let me make one thing clear, the most challenging thing that all of us have in this sport is a repave. Even with the older car it wouldn't matter.

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JEFF GORDON

The tire supplier's tests typically assess factors including wear, heat buildup, and grip level; as they have to provide rubber that can handle asphalt of varying ages, but also concrete surfaces found at Bristol, Dover and Nashville or a combination of the two, such as at Martinsville.

Goodyear's been a NASCAR tire supplier for more than 50 of the 60 years that the sanctioning body has been in existence, so in general the company based in Akron, Ohio, has plenty of data on which to draw.

NASCAR's new chassis, however, is the most radical alteration of the "basic model" that's been seen in decades; and that affects tire construction and performance.

Goodyear has a continually ongoing test and development program that's based on a number of factors including repaves, race data and schedule changes; and given their broad database of test data, they're able to correlate test results to different facilities.

The current dynamics in Sprint Cup racing were never more apparent than in January, when the first en masse test at Daytona of the new car occurred and, faced with a new car and untried set-ups on a green racetrack, some teams experienced "tire issues" ranging from blistering to excessive wear.

Compared to the Atlanta onslaught, a minor outcry was raised, NASCAR and Goodyear paid attention, but in the end determined what they were seeing was virtually no different than what had been seen for years at Daytona in the opening pre-season test.

"That's why people test," Greg Stucker, Goodyear's director of race tire sales said. "They're trying to push the envelope, and to understand what they can and can't get away with, with the new car in particular."

Another dynamic currently in wide use in NASCAR's premier division, that of multi-car teams, also came into play when tires were virtually not discussed at the division's second Daytona test, which came a week later and after three days of Truck Series testing.

"Definitely, the second week was different than the first," Stucker said. "You have cars within the same team that are at [both] the first and the second week, and they talk.

"The NASCAR community is pretty tight, the word gets out there pretty quickly as far as what people are saying -- not only from the tires' perspective but also from the cars' perspective -- so people [could] make changes for the next week and be prepared."

Stucker said that the Daytona test only confirmed what everyone was quickly learning about the new car.

"Again, nothing was way out of the ordinary," Stucker said. "The [new] car had a little bit more aero load in the Daytona package [and] it carries a little bit more right side weight, so it would be tougher on right-side tires.

"We know that going in and it's kind of a learning process for the teams, NASCAR and ourselves, trying to figure out what the settings should be; the inflation pressures and so on and so forth -- trying to understand the whole package."

Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images

Darlington has repaved its surface and will be a green track when the Cup Series visits in May.

New pavement = speed and wear

Stucker said that in many cases, Goodyear is finding that the 2008 tire combinations are "very similar and not drastically different than what we had last year."

But repaves are a different take altogether.

"We were a little concerned about the speeds and the temperatures that we saw during open testing in January [2007]," Stucker said of the Las Vegas oval, which was repaved during the summer of 2006. "So we actually came back with a little harder left-side compound.

"We slowed the cars down and took a little bit of grip away and everybody was real concerned about that -- everybody was very vocal about the lack of grip, but we understood that and we felt like that was the thing that had to be done."

The new car has presented similar challenges, and Goodyear has responded, in small steps, with similar strategies this season, such as they did at Las Vegas last season.

With the track having aged for another year, despite the new car's concerns, Goodyear was able to test in December to develop a combination that was used in January's open test and the race weekend in March.

"The new package had a little more tractive left-side compound, the right-side was very similar to what we raced [in 2007]," Stucker said. "We were able to give them a little more grip with the left-side compound and also we've developed two construction changes -- a very slight change in the right-side construction, which generates a little more grip and a more significant change in the left-side construction -- the elements that actually go into the tire -- that everywhere we've tested, has actually given a little more grip back."

Venerable Darlington Raceway's gnarly 1.366-mile low-banked oval was repaved earlier this year and Goodyear not only scheduled a star-stacked assembly of drivers to test there in March: four-time Cup champion Gordon, current second place point man Greg Biffle and 2008 Daytona 500 winner Newman; Goodyear had them return when the initial two-day test produced speeds of more than 200 mph entering Turn 3.

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I think Atlanta was extreme. We could have ran 120, 140 laps on a set of tires there [and] since 2004, I can't remember ever wanting to run over about 40 or 45 laps at Atlanta 'cause you're ready to, you know, cord a tire or something like that just because it eats the tires up.

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KASEY KAHNE

"Let me make one thing clear, the most challenging thing that all of us have in this sport is a repave," Gordon said. "It is so, so tough because the repave, especially with the polymers and things that are involved in the paving processes these days, gives the track a very smooth surface with a lot of grip.

"Even with the older car it wouldn't matter, you're gonna go to Darlington, you're gonna be really, really fast and you're gonna build a lot of heat up in the tires literally doing 200 miles per hour going into Turn 3, so it's a challenge."

Gordon, in turn challenged Goodyear to go the extra distance and have a second test with the same three teams, which the manufacturer did.

"It was a group effort, we're very proud of how it went and what Goodyear did," Gordon said. "There's going to be some teams that like the tire and other teams that aren't going to like it because you do have to go really hard and take the grip away to keep the speeds down and keep the heat out of the tires so that we don't have any issues [but] I promise you it's not going to be like Atlanta.

"They're being conservative for the right reasons, but it's not so far conservative we're not going to like it."

Biffle predicted happier faces in the Darlington garage in May.

"The drivers are gonna love that tire," Biffle said. "The thing about it is the track is still pretty dang fast. There's that happy medium we have to hit with keeping everybody happy. I know the drivers are gonna be happy because the car is gonna handle good and that tire takes a couple laps to get its grip built up.

"It's a little bit harder left side, but it runs real consistent. I did a 40-lap run and on Lap 40 I'm running the exact same lap time as I ran on Lap 3 -- no cords showing on these tires at that point.

"I think this tire is definitely gonna be a fast, good tire -- good for grip -- so we hope the car isn't too hard on the tire."

Newman said his back was big enough to stand any criticism his fellow drivers might direct at the test pilots, but he was comfortable with their choice.

"We feel like we have good speed, a good tire and a safe tire -- it errors to the conservative side but not to the extreme conservative side," Newman said. "The cars are drivable. We chose a tire that is not the easiest to drive.

"The more grip you give it, the easier it is to drive, and the closer you come to the safety issues, so we chose a tire that makes it a little bit harder to drive, but still drivable and hopefully it will put on a good race for the fans."

Darlington's race in May is held primarily at night, which creates another wrinkle for tire development.

"The track seems to be, as all dark, repaved tracks are, very sensitive to temperature -- the hotter it is the less grip there is," said Rick Campbell, Goodyear's team leader for NASCAR racing. "The Darlington race will be run primarily in the evening and this tire is intended to perform on a cool racetrack where grip will be a little better.

"This is the right tire for an evening race at Darlington and based on the feedback we received from all three drivers in attendance, they agreed with that."

Autostock

Tony Stewart isn't concerned about how Goodyear makes a tire, he just wants a good tire on his No. 20 Toyota.

Meeting a challenge

When it comes to grip, it seems drivers are looking for more stick and ideally, as Stucker jokingly put it, more "give-up -- a real scientific term," which equates to lap times being quicker on new tires but falling off as the tires wear, which leads to different tire strategies during races, such as taking two, four or no tires on pit stops.

The new car has created changes here, as well, Stucker said, because of the new car's higher right-side weight ratio and higher center of gravity, which when the weight transfers during cornering, creates greater stress on the right-side tires.

"In general, we're either going to stay where we are with compounds or we might go a little bit harder on the right side to accommodate that additional load," Stucker said. "But at the same time, we think we might be able to help it with a little bit more left-side grip, so we'll actually be able to go softer, and more tractive on the left side of the car and to keep the balance where it needs to be.

"That's the trend we've seen so far. Will that repeat itself and continue to be the case? We're just going to have to monitor that as teams work with the car more and the car kind of goes through its evolution."

As the cars go through that development, race teams are exploring every possible area to find the minutest advantage they can, given the new car's technical limits.

Kahne said give-up wasn't an issue at Atlanta, as he predicted what might happen at Texas.

"I think [the Texas tire] sounds a lot closer than what we had at Atlanta," Kahne said. "I mean, I think Atlanta was extreme. We could have ran 120, 140 laps on a set of tires there [and] since 2004, I can't remember ever wanting to run over about 40 or 45 laps at Atlanta 'cause you're ready to, you know, cord a tire or something like that just because it eats the tires up.

"I think [the harder tire] was just extreme in Atlanta. Yeah, if they just went a little bit [softer] at Texas, I think that would be great."

“

I don't want to hear what they're doing, I don't want to hear what they want to do, I don't want to hear what they're planning on doing -- I just want to see what happens and see what the end result of that is. I'm not an engineer and I can't tell you what to do to the car to make it a better car.

”

TONY STEWART

Stucker laughed when he was asked if race teams were possibly the manufacturer's biggest challenge because, when they're given a product, despite being presented with guidelines for its preparation and use, they can't be specifically regulated as to air pressure and suspension settings; which obviously can lead to "tire issues" that might not be created by the tires.

"We're trying to make a product to specifications that are good for everyone, and not just a particular team," Stucker said. "Different drivers have different driving styles, and some are a little bit easier on stuff, some are a little bit harder; set-ups are different and crew chiefs have different philosophies, and so on and so forth.

"But again, our charge is to have a product that's suitable for everyone. It doesn't always make everyone happy, and we understand that -- that's part of the business. Our charge is to be sure we've got something that's good and reliable, week in and week out.

"And it's also up to us to make sure that teams understand that. They look at things a little bit differently than we do. They try to get everything they can out of every part on the racecar -- and that includes our product -- so we just try to make sure we're in constant communication with them and NASCAR.

"And they understand the consequences if maybe they do push the envelope a little bit too far with inflation pressure or camber settings or suspension travel. That's a decision they have to make, but we try to make sure we're here and provide them as much information as we can about our product so they can make the right decision."

Throughout a weekend, changing track conditions are one more element Goodyear and Sprint Cup race teams have to battle, Biffle said.

"It's a fine line they're walking," Biffle said, "to have a tire -- on a green racetrack, it's gonna wear out quick -- but if you build a tire for when we're gonna race on Sunday, that's a different tire from when we show up on Friday."

That's one more element that makes tire development, as everything else in racing, a never-ending story.

"They're all about safety, so that's good," Kahne said. "But we also have to be able to race on 'em and race side-by-side. The people building the tire have a ton to do with how competitive and how racy these cars are, so if they bring us a good tire that we can race on, Texas is gonna be a lot of fun [and] I'm definitely looking forward to it."

At Bristol, Stewart met with Goodyear's general manager of worldwide racing, Stu Grant, on the weekend following Atlanta; and while he didn't back off his contention that Goodyear needed to work harder at providing "racier" tires, his take on Texas only peripherally involved tires.

"Because the [new car] is not designed to handle as well, it obviously puts the driver more in the equation; but what it's put a high emphasis on now is engineering," Stewart said. "You're still not going to make it any faster than it's able to go.

"Now, you have to rely on the engineers to find the combination that will make the car go fast and then you just wrestle the car from that point. A driver won't be able to make up the difference.

"We're not going to be able to take a 10th-place car and run first with it. A driver might be able to maintain what he's got, but if his car isn't driving well, he's not going to win the race, and that's where engineering is coming more into play."

And that includes the engineers from Goodyear, Stewart said.

"I don't want to hear what they're doing, I don't want to hear what they want to do, I don't want to hear what they're planning on doing -- I just want to see what happens and see what the end result of that is," Stewart said at Bristol, denying that he had any solutions for the new car. "I'm not an engineer and I can't tell you what to do to the car to make it a better car.

"This car is inherently looser in and looser off and tighter in the center. It's just worse when you don't have any grip and that's what we didn't have [at Atlanta]."

Texas, the latest chapter in the ongoing development tale, will reveal what progress has been made since the last intermediate race.