Tony Stewart On Goodyear Tires - They Blow

Tony Stewart is not a happy man on the eve of the Daytona 500. During the final Cup practice Saturday His Stewart-Haas Racing team mate Ryan Newman blew a tire, a Goodyear tire, and collected Stewart damaging his primary car and forcing Newman to go to his second back up car for the Great American Race Sunday.

Newman's tire blowout lead to another blow up on Goodyear tires by Tony Stewart.

"It's just a Goodyear right-rear tire," Stewart said. "So it's the same thing everybody has been talking about all week. It's the same stuff that we always talk about every year -- the failures that Goodyear has. I think that's part of their marketing campaign. The more we talk about it, the more press they get. I think they forget that it's supposed to be in a good way, not a bad way."

"It was just unfortunate." Ryan Newman said. "We took out my teammate. I don't even know who else was caught up in it. I'm just disappointed in the situation Goodyear has put us in. ... It is ridiculous the situation we are in with these tires."

Tony Stewart has had an issue with Goodyear tires for quite a while. He's not at all happy that NASCAR insists on using one tire manufacturer and not open to competition. While racing in other types of cars, Stewart uses Hoosier tires.

"It's just frustrating because the gold-and-blue down there [where Goodyear is located in the Daytona garage] are the cause of another deal," Stewart said. "I'm just so tired of talking about Goodyear, it's ridiculous. I'm just over it."

Yeah right, you are over it... not. I willing to bet Goodyear tires aren't on his personal vehicle.

"Apparently this is their marketing strategy to get press. I'm just tired of talking about them, tired of them being an issue. And us talking about them right now isn't going to change anything because it falls on deaf ears and won't change." Stewart said.

When asked if he still had a chance to win the Daytona 500 Stewart shot back, "I don't know, rocket scientist. I'm sitting here with a backup car. What do you think?" Well I guess it doesn't take a scientific rocket to figure out Stewart chances are pretty much blown as well as his SHR team mate Ryan Newman.

Of course Goodyear Tires has a different perspective. Stu Grant, Goodyear's director of worldwide racing, is insisting the company brought a competent tire for the Daytona 500 and Newman's blowout has caused by a puncture from debris.

"It's obviously something that was on the race track." Grant said. "It could have been something that had fallen off one of the cars ahead of him. It could have been something that laid on the pavement for a while, and as the cars went by it moved it to a configuration where it could puncture a tire. We see a lot of those kinds of cases."

As for Stewart, he's not ready to make nice with Goodyear.

"Don't get them anywhere near me," Stewart said when asked if he had spoken to any Goodyear officials. "Don't bring them anywhere close; don't let them come close. I don't want anything to do with them."

Here's the wreck from our friends at Speed.