Editor's Note: This article is a wholly independent work by NASCAR.COM writer David Caraviello. While Goodyear is the presenting sponsor of the Inside NASCAR feature, the company had no part in approval of publication of the piece.

AKRON, Ohio -- The epicenter of Goodyear's effort to reclaim Indianapolis Motor Speedway is a modest conference room on the ground floor of the tire company's technical center, three walls of which are lined nearly floor to ceiling with data. There are bar graphs and line graphs and triangle charts, surface surveys and wear studies and test plans, rainbow-colored footprint readouts and comparative optical scans. There are high-resolution, zoomed-in photos of the Indianapolis asphalt, showing grooves that at close range look like sharp, jutting teeth.

For nearly a year, engineers at Goodyear headquarters have been tacking their Indianapolis findings or test results to walls in this "war room," to the point where now, days before NASCAR's exclusive tire manufacturer returns to the Brickyard for the first time since last season's debacle, there's hardly any wall left to be seen. To anyone who's not a tire scientist, who doesn't understand the intricacies behind compounds and formulations and rubber mixes, the individual charts and graphs and numbers are virtually indecipherable. But seen in their totality, all these sheets of paper serve as an unmistakable reminder of how much work has gone into getting one race right.

NASCAR threw six competition cautions (11 total) in last year's Indy race.

“

Everyone in that garage area knew that we were all in it together, but we took it a lot harder than anyone else because we were responsible for putting a tire package together. But we said as we left there, we were going to fix it.

”

GREG STUCKER, Goodyear

It's Goodyear's single largest undertaking in a decade, since the company converted from bias to radial racing tires in 1989, and it's easy to see why. In the aftermath of last season's Allstate 400 at the Brickyard -- widely viewed as the second-most-prestigious race on the NASCAR schedule behind the Daytona 500 -- nobody took more heat than Goodyear when tires, rather than rubbering in the race track as had been the case in previous years, instead began disintegrating into a fine dust. A combination of Indy's grooved surface, a new Sprint Cup car that put more pressure on the right-front, and the compound brought by Goodyear wore tires down to the cords after only a handful of laps, turning the event into a parade of competition cautions that left many drivers angry and many fans vowing never to come back.

To people at Goodyear, the Akron-based company that has been making NASCAR race tires for half a century and providing them exclusively since 1997, the criticism stung. They dealt with it the only way they knew how.

"We just went to work," said Greg Stucker, Goodyear's director of race tire sales. "We were all very disappointed, I think everybody was. Everyone in that garage area knew that we were all in it together, but we took it a lot harder than anyone else because we were responsible for putting a tire package together. But we said as we left there, we were going to fix it. We went to work the very next day to fix it. I think that's exactly what we've done. That was our goal, that was our target. The only reason we looked back was to make sure we learned from what we did. There's not a lot we can do to fix what went on in 2008, other to make sure it doesn't happen again in 2009. That's exactly what we've done."

The result is a tire manufacturer supremely confident that the mistakes of 2008 will not be made again. And no wonder, given the ground work that's gone into this massive project, both here in Akron and on the race track in Indianapolis. Conducting seven tire tests involving 20 different compounds and 31 drivers running a cumulative 13,000 miles. Purchasing optical scanning equipment just for the purpose of examining the topography of the Indy racing surface. Calling in Penhall, the company that diamond-ground the Indianapolis track, to grind a circle and an 800-foot-long strip at Goodyear's test facility, so tires could be tested in Akron on a surface identical to that at the speedway.

"I would say, tongue in cheek, that the effort to get Indy right probably was the equivalent 10 years ago for an entire season. I would say there was that much effort put into it," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition. "It's probably not true, but it sure felt like it, when you look at sheer numbers, the money that was spent, the teams that went there ... It's amazing, the effort. I don't know how you'd put a price tag on it."

Jeff Gordon, who participated in the final tire test, described the Goodyear undertaking in one word. "Unprecedented," he said. "It's unbelievable how much time, money and effort has been spent by them. I don't think it was 100 percent their fault. I think there were other contributions, but they took the fall and they contributed the most to fix it. I'm just confident and glad that they did fix it. They put a lot of effort into it and a lot of different tests and not all those tests were necessarily successful ones, but they learned from every one of them to be able to build the tire that they have now that seems to be fantastic."

All of it in addition to the usual engineering, lab work and forensic analysis conducted in-house. All of it for one race.

"Are we excited and confident? Absolutely. Extremely confident," said Andy Weimer, Goodyear's technology program manager for racing, and a point man on the company's Indianapolis effort. "We have a tremendous amount of track data. We talk about all these tests we've had, the number of different runs we've made, different drivers, different setups, just the total number of laps, I can't remember when we've done as much track work for one particular venue. So yeah, we are extremely confident."

THE NO. 1 PRIORITY

Getty Images

NASCAR's Robin Pemberton examines tire wear during last year's race at Indianapolis.

The effort to correct the problems that turned the 2008 Brickyard race into such an embarrassment began a matter of days after last year's event ended. NASCAR and Goodyear officials talk once a week by conference call, discussing tire performance and trading suggestions for potential improvement. In the wake of Indianapolis, a conference call alone would not do. Executives from NASCAR and Goodyear met face-to-face, sitting across from one another at a conference table, with series officials outlining expectations they wanted the tire manufacturer to meet.

"They were pretty much laying it right on the table at that time what they would expect to see as we got into 2009," Stucker said. "We knew we were going to at least meet their expectations. Hopefully, we were going to exceed them."

The most obvious result was a comprehensive testing plan that saw Goodyear go to Indianapolis seven times, although some of those trips were continuations of previous tests that had been shortened by rain. Less than two months after the Indianapolis fiasco, Goodyear engineers were back at the Brickyard, testing with the help of the former Petty Enterprises team. A methodology, designed to cover any possible weather and track conditions, emerged -- testing in the fall, testing again in the spring, testing after the Indianapolis 500, and concluding with a large-scale test that was held last month.

A tire from Matt Kenseth's car was shredded during last year's Indy race.

Tire Testing 101

Goodyear has conducted seven tire tests at Indianapolis Motor Speedway since last year's race, and also tests regularly at other NASCAR venues. For the race teams and drivers involved, those tests are very similar to any other, with one exception -- the goal isn't to get the car to go as fast as possible, but to be as aerodynamically balanced as possible so engineers can get an accurate read on how the tires are behaving.

"You have to make sure you're running good, competitive laps, but you don't have to be setting track records every lap," said Greg Stucker, Goodyear's director of race tire sales. "You've got to give the driver a pretty good balance. He can't be white-knuckling it every lap, because he's focused on that and not trying to understand what the different sets of tires are doing."

When a driver arrives at a tire test, he's usually accompanied by his crew chief and team, which may need to make adjustments on the car as the session goes on. But the focus is less on the vehicle and more on the tires -- the driver will go out to make a run, come back to the pits so another set of tires can be placed on the car, and be debriefed by Goodyear engineers about performance. Then it's back in the car to do it all over again.

"The goal from the first time you get on the race track is tires," said Red Bull driver Brian Vickers, who has tested often for Goodyear. "Your intent is to get the car reasonably balanced, and once you get there, you start putting tires on. You go through each set, and spend time with Goodyear and talk about each set, and what you liked and didn't like. You examine the tires for wear and everything."

Typically, it's still the crew chief on the radio with the driver while the car is on the track, just as in a normal team test. When the driver pulls in, Stucker said, some Goodyear engineers will measure tire air pressure and temperature, while others will query the driver about performance and feel. The cars are also heavily instrumented during tests, providing telemetry information that Goodyear and the team will share -- which, at a time when testing on sanctioned NASCAR tracks is banned, is why teams are so eager to participate, even though it costs them money to do it.

That was especially the case over the seven tests at Indianapolis, which involved 31 different drivers.

"Those guys sent cars up there to log laps and do whatever Goodyear needed to get it fixed," said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR's vice president for competition. "That's a big undertaking for teams. And they don't get paid to do that. And early on, there's not any good information a team could use coming out of that. ... Teams could have said, let us know when you get it right, and we'll go test for you somewhere else."

Although participants in tire tests often take part in media interviews on-site, the tests themselves are closed. That's not necessarily for competitive or proprietary reasons, Stucker said.

"Generally we have a lot of work to do, and we try to keep everyone focused on the work at hand," he said. "We recognize a lot of time there is an opportunity for the media to be involved, particularly when you're going to a market that maybe they want to generate some interest in. But we've just always taken the approach of, we're there to test tires, and that's what we're going to focus on."

What a contrast that was to last year, when Goodyear officials tested at Indianapolis, saw the fine dust the tires created, but figured the condition would abate as the track rubbered in -- which had always been the case with the old car. Red Bull Racing driver Brian Vickers took part in that 2008 test, and in the ensuing weeks proved almost prophetic with his concerns about what the race might become. Vickers also took part in the testing preceding this year's race, and could see a clear difference.

"Last year we went and tested, and the tire wasn't good, and it was just kind of like, we tested, that's what we've got. That was just the end of it. Then we came back and had a really bad race," Vickers said.

"This year it was, we're going to go back until it's right. We're going to do whatever it takes. We're going to build as many tires as it takes, do as many tests as it takes, to get it right. That wasn't at all the mentality last year, or it probably would have been right. Why, I don't know. Maybe because they've never had to go to this length before. They've never had a problem this bad. They just kind of figured that it would work itself out once the rubber got laid down in the race. I can't answer that on behalf of Goodyear. But I can tell you this, their mentality and approach to building tires and testing tires at Indy, and at any race track for that matter now, after what happened at Indy last year, is completely different."

The tire teams will use Sunday at the Brickyard evolved over those seven tests conducted at Indianapolis since last year. For the initial tests last fall, Stucker said, Goodyear first went through almost every tire in its catalogue, from Martinsville to Talladega, looking for anything that worked. The next goal was simply to find a compound that would be so hard, it would provide a full fuel run no matter how abrasive the surface. It wouldn't have the grip drivers wanted, but it was a kind of fallback so "if we had to race today, we could," Stucker said. That gave Goodyear engineers the two extremes, a soft tire like the one that fell apart in 2008, and an ultra-hard emergency reserve.

The remaining tests were spent testing tires somewhere in the middle, as engineers searched to find a compound that would provide a degree of grip and falloff but also stand up to Indy's rugged grooved surface. The tire that emerged includes materials and formulations that Goodyear has never used in racing tires before. "It's actually got a little bit of like a chemical in it that's actually laying rubber down. It feels sticky when you're cleaning it off the race car," Kurt Busch said. The large-scale test conducted in June seemed to indicate that engineers had what they wanted -- a tire that would last on a green or rubbered-in race track, and allowed drivers to make a full fuel run.

"I'm really proud of them, to be honest with you," Vickers said. "We went though many tests, many tires, different compounds, constructions, and just never could get it just right. The last test we were up there, they brought back the best tire they had, and they put all the stuff together they learned from all the tests, and I think they have a really good tire. Right out of the gate we could run 20 laps. By the end, once we laid some rubber down, we could just about make a fuel run. I was very impressed with the effort they put into it. I think Goodyear and NASCAR both did the right thing by doing whatever it took to get it right. And I understand why it was so difficult for them, I really do. Between the track and the car, it couldn't have been more difficult."

Even two-time Brickyard champion Tony Stewart, an occasional critic of Goodyear, left the final test impressed.

"I've gained a lot of respect for Goodyear over just the process of working on the tire for Indianapolis, and the dedication that they've shown to making sure that that doesn't happen again," he said. "We were able to run almost 30 laps and still not even be down to the cords on the tires, so I'm very confident that with a full field here that there shouldn't be any issues at all. You obviously can't guarantee that, but I can tell you that from the test session, and normally the test is a lot worse on tire wear than it is during a race weekend, that we were able to run 30 laps and feel very comfortable. They've got a tire that will be just fine when we come back [to Indy]. Not only is it going to be durable, but also I think the way that that the laps fell off time-wise, I think is going to make for a great race, too, with the way that the tire performance falls off."

The ground work wasn't all done on the race track. Goodyear's forensic scientists studied the 2008 Indianapolis tire to try and get a better idea of why it was turning to dust. Executives double-checked all the steps along Goodyear's very hands-on assembly line, finding no anomalies in tire production. Weimer said Goodyear purchased new equipment that allowed engineers to optically scan the Indianapolis racing surface, to get a more exact feel for its topography and roughness. And they called on Penhall, the company that diamond-ground the Indy track, to do the same thing to a circular and a straight portion of Goodyear's vehicle dynamics area, a proving ground across the street from its Akron technical center.

It was an expensive, but necessary move that allowed Goodyear to test compounds before ever leaving for Indianapolis, giving the company a better idea of which tires to bring to the actual Brickyard tests. Engineers attached the race tires to a vehicle called a traction truck, a standard practice when working with passenger tires, leaving long, dark skid marks on the grooved surface. Photos of those marks, with chalk numbers denoting the different compounds scribbled beside them in the asphalt, are tacked up in the war room.

"The idea there was to replicate the surface so we could do our own evaluations here without having to contract with the track and having a big event," Weimer said. "What we've been able to do is, we've been running various tire options on the track, looking at what kind of wear debris it generates and how it rubbers in the surface. We've been able to rank order our options and do a lot of confirmation tests. The track is a fixed entity, but we can have variations in weather, and we've gone through some sensitivity studies to ensure the tire we're bringing to the 2009 race is robust enough, whether it's a cool day or a hot day or an overcast day. So we've been able to run those fundamental studies here in Akron, where it would be more logistically difficult to do it at the race track."

The end result is a right-side tire that, for now, will only be used for Sprint Cup events at Indianapolis. But Goodyear liked it so much they tried it in a recent Nationwide test at Bristol Motor Speedway, in the hopes of giving teams more limited in their tire supply a product that will put more rubber down more quickly on an abrasive concrete surface. But at this point, any other benefit is ancillary. This is a tire one year in the making, designed, tested and built with only one thing in mind -- that 2.5-mile oval at the corner of West 16th Street and Georgetown Road in Indianapolis.

"There hasn't been a day gone by that we haven't talked about Indianapolis. That's the truth," Stucker said. "It's been the No. 1 priority. It hasn't been the only priority, because there are 35 other events you have to focus on as well, plus drag racing, plus sports cars, plus everything else we do. But it's definitely been the No. 1 priority, and we've made sure we've gotten it right."

HATCHING AN EAGLE

Aaron Vandersommers, Goodyear

Goodyear racing tires are assembled in a labor-intensive process at the company's technical center in Akron, Ohio.

Goodyear's Akron technical center is a former tire manufacturing plant dating from the 1930s, a handsome red-brick building with a clock tower that feels surprisingly light and airy inside. There are even a few pieces of sculpture tucked away in corners. But don't let the decor fool you -- the business inside is serious, and much of it proprietary, which is why visitors have to leave any cameras at the front desk. A journey through the manufacturing floors, where every NASCAR race tire that Goodyear produces is made, requires suiting up in steel-toed shoe covers, protective glasses and a bright yellow vest.

The place smells like rubber, not surprising given that it produces about 1,000 race tires a day, and can ramp production up to 2,500 if necessary. Although Goodyear has a storage facility in Charlotte, it keeps production in Akron because it wants its technicians and engineers all under the same roof. Still, there's no question the place makes race tires -- there's a big Sprint Cup schedule poster on one wall, a "Victory Lane" where employee announcements and improvement goals are listed, and a few individual photos of drivers or cars adorning work stations.

What you don't see is anyone from NASCAR. While Goodyear and NASCAR officials talk weekly by conference call, NASCAR has a tire engineer who goes to every test, and the two sides regularly trade notes about performance and areas of potential improvement, manufacturing is a completely autonomous process. With the testing ban in place, NASCAR does try to make sure that Goodyear is fair in the teams and manufacturers it chooses for tire testing. But the design and construction of race tires is Goodyear's job alone.

"Our partner is Goodyear. They are the tire experts. Through thick and thin, there're the ones that understand their tires and build their tires. If we get off base, we can all sit down and talk about what we think and what we feel. But ultimately, it's their job to build good stuff for fair competition," NASCAR's Pemberton said.

"We have calls every week, and we'll come away from a race track where yeah, it's OK, but as an observer and watching how the race goes, we feel like maybe the tire could have been one way or the other, softer or harder or whatever, that makes for better racing. We'll say this, and they'll say we might agree, maybe we'll go back and test, so we'll encourage them to go off and maybe develop something else for the next go 'round. But we don't tell them their business. The tire company, they are the experts. That's why they are the exclusive tire manufacturer."

A "green" or uncured tire before it goes into the curing press, which gives it its familiar shape.

“

There are a lot of machines that assist in that process, but some of the key components are still done by a Goodyear engineer that sits there and makes sure it's as perfect as it can be. That put my mind at ease a lot, being able to see firsthand how those tires are made.

”

TONY STEWART

James "T" Townsend gives a thorough visual inspection of each tire.

That manufacturing process is surprisingly hands-on, involving as many people as machines. Stewart, who has had his battles with Goodyear, noticed as much when he came to Akron after the Daytona 500 to observe the procedure for himself.

"It's a process that makes you shake your head, because you just don't realize what goes into making a tire," said the two-time series champion and current points leader. "And the good thing is, it's not done by a machine, it's done by a physical person that actually puts that tire together. There are a lot of machines that assist in that process, but some of the key components are still done by a Goodyear engineer that sits there and makes sure it's as perfect as it can be. That put my mind at ease a lot, being able to see firsthand how those tires are made."

That process begins when the raw rubber compound, mixed at a plant two blocks away, is fed into a machine that presses it into long, flat sheets. Across the room the other half of the tire, the fabric portion -- usually nylon or polyester -- sits in large rolls. Machines bind together rubber and fabric to form what will become the shell of the tire, while in another room sheets of rubber are forced through pre-cast dies that will produce the tread. There is a cabinet full of dies, all of them virtually indiscernible to the naked eye, but each one specific to one track. Hanging from racks are hundreds of beads, the metal circles that bind the tire to the wheel.

After the finished tread is water-cooled and cut to size, the pieces of the tire are assembled by hand. Wearing a Cleveland Indians floppy hat and listening to classical music, Walt Meehan lays pieces of rubber on top of each other, adding extra strips here or there to promote stiffness. The tire -- No. 4240, a right-side compound to be used at Richmond International Raceway -- finally begins to take shape as the beads are affixed and air is inserted, although for now the inner edges are flipped outside rather than inside. For traceability purposes, every assembler adds a small yellow sticker with his name on it. "Professionally built by Meehan," this one reads.

Old photos of the Robert Yates Racing cars of Dale Jarrett and Ricky Rudd are affixed to his work station, but they've been left behind by someone else. Meehan's favorite driver? Kyle Busch. Like many Sprint Cup stars, he's toured the facility and been walked through the manufacturing process. "He came in here one time, about a year and a half ago," Meehan says. "He seemed like a nice young man."

From there it's onto another station, where a technician like Louis Drouhard applies the radio-frequency identification chip, a device that looks like a black Band-Aid but contains a small antenna that can be used to track the tire. For now, the tire is still known as a "green" tire, because it has yet to be cast into the form it will take at the race track. Naturally, a popular prank played on new Goodyear employees is to ask them to go find a green tire.

The tire doesn't stay green for very long. It's off to the curing machine, which hisses and steams as it presses the tire against the mold that will give it its familiar, race track form. Indianapolis backups and Pocono right-sides spend several minutes in the press, and then and slide down to a conveyor belt. One of the first things Goodyear did after last year's Brickyard debacle was to comb trough the manufacturing process, looking for potential errors.

"There weren't [any]," Goodyear's Stucker said. "We checked components, formulations, we made sure the rubber didn't get mixed wrong. None of that was the case. It was design issue and not a manufacturing issue."

The conveyor belt carries the newly minted race tires down a floor, where 21-year Goodyear employee James "T" Townsend gives them a thorough visual inspection. His favorite driver? "I try to pull for everybody," he says, smiling. "Try to keep it equal."

It's a refrain you hear often along the assembly line. "I have to stay a little neutral," adds Colin Winn, who along with Bill Boston is operating a machine that tests physical forces on the tires, and provides basic performance information that goes on the white sticker -- hence the term "sticker" tires -- that helps crew chiefs determine their setups. "I can't have somebody thinking that somebody got a better tire than somebody else."

Boston, though, isn't quite as impartial. His grandmother was a Roush, so he pulls for Jack Roush's cars. He's also well aware of the criticism that befell Goodyear after last season's race at Indianapolis. "That bothers you," he says. "You don't want to think you're putting out a poor product. I wouldn't say we were offended, but we want to make sure it was being corrected. We know it was being corrected the right way."

From there it's into another area with racks of finished race tires, including a new rain compound for the Montreal Nationwide event that Juan Montoya tested at Goodyear's proving ground in San Angelo, Texas. David Fletcher, a 25-year company veteran and Jeff Gordon fan, feeds new tires through an X-ray machine that searches for minute flaws, and into a sort of tire MRI that searches for even more minute ones. The ones that pass make it to Andy Respress, who uses a laser guide to apply the final touch -- the yellow stenciling of both the Goodyear and Eagle brand names.

There are other tests in other buildings, including a laboratory where tires in development are run at track-specific race speed on a machine that can even mimic corners by turning tires against a spinning wheel. At 175 mph, the approximate speed generated at Lowe's Motor Speedway, the tire is squeezed and emits a shriek as corner forces are reproduced. But then again, that's the exact purpose the men and women on the Goodyear assembly line are making them for.

"I come out of engineering, and the main thing I look at is, you want to make the best product you can," Respress says. "You've got guys going around the track at 200 mph. You've got somebody's life at stake. It's kind of scary. We try to make the best product we can."

LESSONS OF THE BRICKYARD

Getty Images

Fans show their displeasure after a competition caution on Lap 150 of last year's race.

There have been times in the past when tire issues at Indianapolis Motor Speedway have led to competitive changes throughout NASCAR. In 2006, short tire life during practice at the Brickyard prompted series officials to establish and enforce air-pressure minimums and camber angle limits. Eventually, those same practices were applied to every race track on the circuit. The impact of last year's tire fiasco won't be quite as obvious, but there have already been instances where the lessons of the Brickyard have been applied to tires for other Sprint Cup venues.

"Even as early as last year, they made a change to a tire for the Dover fall race, based on the forensics and what the Goodyear engineers had found at the track in Indy," NASCAR's Pemberton said. "So we were already starting to get benefits from that towards the fall of last year. Since then, it's been a number of tracks that have gotten the benefit of that test, showing the limits of the tires, at different places. It's something we'll capitalize on for years to come, I'm sure."

Goodyear's research has resulted in applications for all race tracks.

The entire process has forced Goodyear engineers to think differently, to seek more in-depth answers and rely less on assumptions, because they know what happened at the Brickyard last season cannot happen again.

While it's probably an overstatement to suggest that the Indianapolis experience will change the way tires are developed and tested in the future, the events of the past 12 months will clearly have an impact that lasts beyond one Sunday afternoon at the Brickyard. By itself, the unprecedented level of scrutiny applied during the seven Indy tests sets a higher bar. That's not to say that tires for every track will be tested that many times. But engineers will surely be looking for different things based on what they learned at Indianapolis. "If you have a test matrix, there is probably a whole new row of boxes you need to check off now," Pemberton said.

Those tests also supplied Goodyear with reams of fresh data on the new car, a vehicle with greater right-front pressures that have led to tire issues at tracks other than just Indianapolis. It's not a stretch to think the information collected during the Indy tests could lead to better tires elsewhere.

"What's changed is, we're just developing a better understanding of the race car, and we have a lot more history under out belt with this car on these race tracks," Goodyear's Stucker said. "It's not necessarily changing our philosophy as it is learning more about the car and what you can do and what you can't do. Certainly, we learned a lot as we went through the process for Indianapolis. It was very intense. There was a lot of work done in Akron. There was a lot learned in that entire process, so certainly there are a lot of things we can glean from that and apply to other race tracks. Certainly as we go forward, a lot of that knowledge will be applied as we do additional testing from here on out."

Goodyear now has new equipment, like the optical scanner, that can provide more comprehensive knowledge of race track topography at places other than Indianapolis. And the entire process has forced Goodyear engineers to think differently, to seek more in-depth answers and rely less on assumptions, because they know what happened at the Brickyard last season cannot happen again.

"I think, if anything, it's kind of opened the door to look at things a little bit differently," Stucker said. "If I look at the two tires from last year and this year, they still look [the same]. And internally, they're not drastically different, either. The constructions are pretty much the same. But the way we approached it, and the things that are being asked, and the depth of which things are being explored to find different solutions and ask different questions and find different answers, I think the whole methodology is a little bit different. From my seat, it's just been the depth of the process and making sure we have all the answers. It's just an in-depth approach to make sure we have all the answers, and ensure that nothing has been overlooked."