NASCAR: Stewart Calls Goodyear Crap

Tony Stewart took a huge swing at Goodyear following his second place finish from the 32nd starting position in the Kobalt Tools 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway on Sunday afternoon.

The engine in the No. 20 Home Depot Toyota was barely cool enough to touch as Stewart waded chest deep into heated comments against the Akron (Oh) tire manufacturer.

"That was the most pathetic racing tire that I've ever been on in my professional career," Stewart asserted during his post-race interview. "If I were Goodyear, I would be really embarrassed about this weekend and what they brought here."

Stewart's comments, often on the raw side, were actually backed up by third place finisher Dale Earnhardt, Jr. and four-time Sprint Cup champion Jeff Gordon who finished fifth.

"“I felt like I was going to crash every single lap," Gordon said. "I think right now Goodyear just overreacted. The initial thing would be to see, now that Goodyear has looked at the tire and the wear and didn’t have any problems with tire failure…. A tire is supposed to wear. It’s supposed to. And that’s a good performing tire. It’s not supposed to wear to the cords and blow. It’s not supposed to blow if you put a little tiny bit of camber or too little air. So they’re in a tough position. This car doesn’t help them any. It’s really, really hard on right sides. But they’ve been doing a good job the last three weeks with what we’ve had. So I’m going to try to go to Darlington and make sure that we have something good when we go back there and race.”

Goodyear's Justin Fantozzi, Racing Marketing Manager, said he won't not respond to questions concerning specific driver comments. He did say Goodyear engineers would sit down, evaluate the data collected over the course of the weekend and respond accordingly at that time.

Fantozzi did admit that building a tire to work with the new car offered the same challenges present in any other vehicle change in all forms of auto racing.

With or without any changes Stewart was clear in his concerns saying, "Goodyear can't build a tire worth a crap."

It could be Stewart's attitude will turn 180 degrees next week as the circuit pulls in to the first track on the schedule where the new car has been previously run.