In Indy aftermath, a little contrition goes a long way (cont'd)

"It's nobody's fault. It's the package, and that's what we need to understand," Greg Stucker, Goodyear's director of race tire sales, said Sunday.

Actually, it's everybody's fault. It's NASCAR's fault for their restrictive test policy that only allows for a handful of full-field sessions each season. It's the crew chiefs' fault for not insisting on an Indianapolis test when Sprint Cup director John Darby polled them late last year on potential 2008 test sites. It's Goodyear's fault for making a massive leap of faith, for seeing the abnormally rapid tire wear during the two-day, three-driver test it conducted in April, and assuming that all would be fine despite the tremendous additional load the new car places on the right side. It's the fault of the three teams that took part in that tire test, who should have banged the drum louder over the possibility of a potentially debilitating problem.

Brickyard to dust

A debacle like the one that happened Sunday shouldn't happen anywhere. But it absolutely cannot happen at Indy, writes David Caraviello.

• Complete story, click here
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• Community: NASCAR Says ...

At last, it's all beginning to sink in. "It's obvious that we didn't go there with the right car/tire combination," Pemberton said Tuesday. "We've raced on that [repaved and diamond-ground] surface the last four years, and I wouldn't ask them to change that surface. We've got to do a better job."

They will. NASCAR needs to get a better feel for how car setups, which Goodyear believes often exacerbate tire problems, contribute to something like Sunday. Next year's test policy will be much more liberal, allowing for a number of private tests rather than the few official ones NASCAR currently oversees. Virtually every track, Pemberton said, will likely see some degree of testing prior to its event. Bet on teams flocking to Indianapolis in 2009. And the testing -- particularly that done by Goodyear -- needs to produce more definitive results.

"We probably need to do a better job of testing," Pemberton said. "Different racetracks obviously offer different challenges with their surfaces. Indianapolis probably gave us the most trouble we've seen in recent history. There's nothing wrong with the surface, we've just got to do a better job in testing and come out of there with a better position on our tires."

That's what people have wanted to hear since Sunday, when they stared agog at their television sets, wondering how on earth it was that tires -- glorified pieces of athletic equipment, really -- could so impact the Chase race (ask Matt Kenseth) and thrust an event at venerable Indianapolis into such chaos. Watching something like that unfold, at Indy of all places, was in equal measures disheartening, infuriating and sad. Sunday, we wondered if the officials running the show felt the same way.

Now we know. "It hurts us when we have a weekend like we've had. There's nothing worse than coming away from a race and knowing, knowing that the result wasn't even close. It wasn't even in the 25th percentile of what we're capable of doing, and what we do week in and week out," Pemberton said.

"I don't feel real good about it right now, and I think if you talked to anybody who's been around me the last 48 hours, they'll probably back me up on that. It's difficult, it's hard, we do beat ourselves up. But that's what makes us one of the best motorsports [series] in the entire world, that we take it personally, and when we see things that we know we can fix, we go and fix them. That's what we're going to set out to do. We're going to put this behind us, and when we go back to Indianapolis next year, we'll probably have the best Brickyard race we've ever had."

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.