Goodyear's Right Front Tire Problems - 1999 Pontiac Excitement 400

The 1999 Pontiac Excitement 400 had a lot of right front tire failures, more than usual. I counted at least 10 teams with reports of a right front cording, about to fail, or having a complete failure, including #31 Mike Skinner, #7 Michael Waltrip, #24 Jeff Gordon, #5 Terry Labonte, #43 John Andretti (twice), #10 Ricky Rudd, #91 Dick Trickle, #23 Jimmy Spencer, and #26 Johnny Benson. During the race, Goodyear was interviewed and stated that they were not exactly sure why it was happening. Teams were told to lower the air pressure on the right front tire. That seemed to help after that as there weren't as many issues as in the first half of the race.

A few days later, Goodyear released a statement. This is from Jayski's news archives in May 1999:

UPDATE on Tires at Richmond: Follow up information from Tony Freund, lead engineer for stock car tire development on May 17, 1999: A number of Winston Cup cars experienced right front tire tread blistering during the Richmond race on Saturday night. We suspect it was heat and chassis setup related, since many of the cars running up front experienced no problems. Goodyear has brought the same tire recommendation to Richmond for four years and it has performed as it should in the past. Normally, at the first pit stop we can see wear of 2/32” to 3/32”, as the tires are working to dissipate heat correctly and avoid blistering. A number of things such as aerodynamics, a variation in the sealer content or application (such as thickness, etc), certain driver styles or some aggressive chassis setups could have contributed to the Richmond situation. Since cars having the trouble all had heat concentration on the inside right front of the tires, our Goodyear engineers were proactive during the race telling teams about some options. One was to work with air pressure, and actually lower it some to work the tire harder and enlarge the footprint. Another was to make a chassis adjustment to loosen the car to work the right rear tire harder and the right front less. Also, since the tires had no giveup, it was suggested they could take a right rear tire with 30-40 laps on it and mount it on the right front. Because it would have a good scuff on it, it could have enabled the cars to double their number of laps. Our engineering group will be working with the teams to evaluate all the input in order to make any needed tire adjustments prior to our return to Richmond this fall(Goodyear PR)(5-18-1999)

Some parts are from the race uploaded by SMIFF TV. Video is for awareness purposes only. All credit to NASCAR and ESPN.