Explain this like you would to an 8 year old. Why are they making the big deal about tire count in Indy racing this season? If I understand what I'm watching right now, they are qualifying on tires they WILL SAVE and reuse in the race??!! Huh? Why ? Who races on tires off the used tire pile? What about heat cycles?? Surely, if its the "even playing field" thing, there should be something beside tires to do that.
IIRC from my days watching NASCAR (many years ago), teams would "scrub in" a set of tires. The philosophy is/was that "scrubbed" tires (run through a heat cycle) will last longer (at their desired grip level) than fresh tires run flat out of the box past and through their optimal grip range. I assume its sort of the same thought as tempering steel....???
Its a cost savings thing (in theory at least), each team gets X number of sets per weekend so Penske and Ganassi don't spend the little guys into oblivion. Didn't work. I do like the standard and optional tires (blacks vs. reds) and the ensuing strategy in the race itself. I think NASCAR teams have to start the race on the tires they qualified on too, at least they used to, in reaction to the "tire wars" between Goodyear and Hoosier that saw really soft qualifying tires.
Warning: **** Heere there be spoilers: **** (Mid Ohio) If you saw the Indy Mid-Ohio 200, think about Wilson: 28 laps of walking away from the field on option reds. Then getting spanked on primes/blacks. So why didn't he come back in for reds at lap 57? (28 to go) Instead, they left him out until he ran the tank. The only explanation I can think of is that they were just plain flat out of option reds. And they didn't think they had 25-30 laps left on their scrub reds. I hate seeing someone's race ruined that way.
