1960s Tire Wars

Times were changing at the Speedway. By 1964, Goodyear Tire & Rubber was tired of Firestone’s domination of the Indianapolis 500. The last time Goodyear won was in 1919. In subsequent years, they withdrew from providing tires but in 1964, they reappeared at the Speedway. Not only was Firestone’s cross-town rival Goodyear vying for inclusion in the race, so were Armstrong Tire Company owned Sears-Roebuck in support of Mickey Thompson, and British tire company Dunlop in support of Jimmy Clark. The tire companies along with fuel companies, spark plug manufacturers, and other accessory companies recognized that racing, which was then the second most popular sport in the nation, was one of the best ways to sell their product.
 
Testing was very important to the tire companies. Historically, tires at IMS were stiff because of the brick track. Because over the years, significant portions of the track had been paved, softer tires gave better grip and increased speed. The question the tire companies had to solve was which compound would work best. In 1964, Goodyear tires had a softer configuration. The question was, could they stand up to the wear and tear of the Speedway.
 
On May 17, Jimmy Clark took the pole position in his Lotus Ford with a record-breaking speed of 158.828 mph. An established racer in Great Britain, Clark was a rookie at the Speedway. Over the first weekend of qualifying, Goodyear did not have any drivers qualify. Afterwards, Speedway press attaché Bill Marvel quipped, “They just declared Akron a disaster area.”
 
Controversy arose over the softer Goodyear tires. Some drivers claimed the soft tires were not made available to them before the trials. Goodyear responded that the softer tires had been at the track since May 1 but were available only for rear-engine cars. Drivers without rear-engine cars protested that gave an unfair advantage. Goodyear representative Tony Webner explained “We didn’t offer it at first because it was designed and built for use only on rear-engine cars. We didn’t want to cause a fuss by giving it to the rear-engine drivers and not to the roadster drivers.”
 
By May 21, the drivers who had been running on Goodyear tires including A. J. Foyt, Len Sutton, and Jim Hurtubise switched to Firestone. Goodyear would have to wait until 1965 to challenge Firestone. Both Goodyear and Firestone had spent thousands of dollars and had logged more than 10,000 miles testing their tire compounds.
 
Just because Goodyear didn’t have any cars in the 1964 race, they did not give up. When the track opened in 1965, Goodyear was back with a new innovation—a Lifeguard inner tire which held air pressure even when the outer tire was punctured to reduce the danger at high speeds. One of the drivers using Goodyear tires was two-time winner A. J. Foyt. Goodyear’s “tire within a tire” was tested by NASCAR driver Richard Petty. When the tire was purposely slashed, Petty was still able to control the car. The advantage was that if the outer tire was damaged and went flat, the axle drop was approximately ¾-inch as compared to four to five inches for the standard type of tire. The disadvantage of this type of tire  was that it weighed about 3 ½ pounds heavier in front and five pounds heavier in the rear than the conventional tube type racing tire.
 
Goodyear offered drivers a choice of three different tires—a tubeless, tube-type, and the company’s Lifeguard model which was described as a cross between the other two. Each tire had the same compound which Goodyear believed would “provide faster speed, longer wear, greater durability and improved handling characteristics.” Goodyear’s new Lifeguard tire was developed from the work done on its passenger car tires.
 
Both sides were confident of their tires. Jim Loulan, manager of racing tire development for Goodyear said, “We feel our racing tire this year has double the wear of Firestone. Right now, we have our tires on 50 per cent of the cars on the track and we feel we’ll hold that percentage in the race itself.  Firestone Jim These disputed Goodyear’s claims. “I don’t see how they (Goodyear) can make any statements about double the wear of our tires.” He went on to say they believed they have "the finest racing tire ever built.
 
Unfortunately for Goodyear, the day before qualifications, Gordon Johncock’s roadster’s right front tire started chunking. Usually caused by excess heat, chunking is when pieces of tread detach from the tire.
 
The real test, of course, would be qualifications. A. J. Foyt took the pole position using Goodyear tires and, in the process, set new on and four lap qualifying records of 161.958 mph and 161.233 mph respectively. While Goodyear tires took the pole position, by the close of the first day of qualifying, Firestone had twelve cars in the field compared to seven for Goodyear.
 
While running a fuel test the next week, Foyt’s car experienced chunking of the right rear tire which he attributed to using new shocks and the safety inner tube tire which heats up quicker. For the race, he planned to go back to his normal setup. It wasn’t only Foyt experiencing chunking problems, Billy Foster and Don Branson also had the issue while running endurance tests. The Goodyear engineering crew needed to find an answer for the issue. Otherwise, eight of the twenty-one cars that qualified on the first weekend were in jeopardy of being eliminated from the field of 33.
 
Goodyear engineers identified the problem as a small “blade fold” during  production. The tread depth of the Goodyear tires was 7/32 of an inch compared to Firestone’s tread depth of 5/32 of an inch. The 1964 Firestone tread depth was 7/32 of an inch but for 1965, they had a softer tire compound and reduced the depth so the tire would run cooler. New tires were being built at the Goodyear Akron plant with a depth of 5/32-inch. They would conform to USAC regulations of hardness, size, and design as the qualifying tires. They expected the new tires to arrive at the Speedway in two days.
 
Goodyear engineers seemed to have solved the problem until USAC officials changed their minds about Goodyear’s plan to produce tires with a tread depth of 5/32 of an inch. Initially, USAC officials said that tread depth wasn’t one of the measurements in the rules. When chief steward Harlan Fengler announced the new tires would not be permitted to run because they “were altered,” Goodyear tires needed to be 7/32-inch deep. Goodyear officials immediately protested Fengler’s ruling.
 
The solution was to buff the tires down to a 5/32-inch depth at the factory until Fengler ruled that machine buffed tires would not be permitted. That left the drivers who qualified on Goodyear tires with a problem. They could run on the tires on which they qualified; they could get waivers from all the other participants to change tires; or they could somehow get Fengler to permit the use of the buffed tires.
 
With the machine buffed tires ruled to be illegal, the drivers were allowed to use the tires on the racetrack to attain the 5/32-inch depth. They had two practice days and two hours during carburetion tests. James Loulan promised that Goodyear would be ready for the Memorial Day race.
 
The field for the 1964 race had an average qualifying speed of 152.058 mph. Significantly, speed had jumped and the 1965 starting field averaged 156.058 mph, an increase of 3.518 mph. Goodyear had twelve drivers qualify for the race. Firestone still dominated the field with 21 cars.
 
The race was won by Jimmy Clark using Firestone tires. All was not lost for Goodyear. Don Banson finished eighth and Al Unser finished tenth. Goodyear officials were encouraged by the fact they had no tire problems during the race. While they didn’t achieve their goal of winning, they showed well. Goodyear would return for the 1966 race.
 
Goodyear made a statement in the 1965 Indianapolis race. While they didn’t win the race, Goodyear hoped 1966 would be the year that they would end Firestone’s 40+ year run. The last time Goodyear tires were on the winning car was in 1919 when Howdy Wilcox drove his Peugeot owned by Speedway co-founder Jim Allison.
 
One of the rules for participating in the Indianapolis 500 was that tire companies must make their products available to all entrants.
 
Drivers had taken notice and in the early days of May were trying out both Goodyear and Firestone tires to see which tire they believed would give them that extra speed to propel them to victory. One of the first to try out the competitor’s tire was George Snider who changed from Goodyear to Firestone. His best lap on a Firestone tire was 157.591 mph while he had earlier run 156.958 mph on Goodyear. It was a windy day, and Snider’s comment after running was “You can’t tell anything from this run.” He promised to try again when the wind wasn’t blowing so hard.
 
Based upon practice runs,  Goodyear was prepared to challenge Firestone’s dominance. During the first ten days of practice, Firestone were the tires of choice for the two fastest cars, but Goodyear had half of the top 10 speeds. Whatever tire the driver had during his qualifying effort had to be run in the race. Just before qualifying trials started, Firestone had 20 entrants in the race while Goodyear was the choice for 17.
 
On the first day of qualifying, Firestone grabbed two of the front row spots. Mario Andretti took the pole with a record-smashing qualifying effort of 165.899 mph. Next to him was Jimmy Clark also using Firestone. Goodyear took the outside of the first row with George Snider at the . Firestone had ten cars with its tires compared to eight with Goodyear. After the second day of qualifying, Goodyear had taken the lead with 13 versus 10 for Firestone.
As the drivers lined up for the race, the tire war was as close as possible. Firestone was on 17 of the cars while Goodyear was on 16 of the cars. Goodyear would have to wait another year before they could win the Indianapolis 500. Firestone was on the first three finishers (Graham Hill, Jimmy Clark, and Jim McElreath), but Goodyear provided the tires for six of the top 10 finishers.
 
As May 1967 approached, the question was whether Goodyear would finally break Firestone’s dominance. Mario Andretti took the pole with the fastest qualifying speed in track history at 168.982 mph. Since 1965, the top 12 qualifiers had driven more than 24,000 at IMS testing equipment including tires. While Firestone took the pole position, Goodyear took the next four spots. The first twelve qualifiers were evenly split between the two tire companies. The final lineup had 17 cars using Firestone and 16 cars using Goodyear. Goodyear seemed to have a slight advantage. The 17 qualifiers for Firestone had an average speed of 164.066 for the 10-mile trial while Goodyear’s sixteen qualifiers averaged 164.375 mph.
 
The war between the two tire companies was very expensive. Goodyear reportedly spent $8 million in one year just to get drivers to use their tires. Mario Andretti was believed to have a four-year contract with Firestone valued between $1 million and $2 million.
 
At long last, Firestone’s domination of the Indianapolis 500 was broken. A. J. Foyt won the race sporting Goodyear tires. Foyt took the lead on lap 197 after Parnelli Jones’ turbine car, which led for 173 laps, suffered a transmission failure. Foyt set a new speed record of 151.207 mph. Firestone took second place with Al Unser at the wheel. Goodyear took six of the top 10 spots in the race. Goodyear’s victory at the Indianapolis 500 capped a mission to dominate auto racing. They won LeMans in 1965, the Formula One world championship in 1966.
 
Goodyear touted their victory with a color ad titled “Goodyear’s victory at the Indianapolis 500 makes your driving safer.”
 
While the tire wars continued, by the mid-1970s, Firestone had been priced out leading to Goodyear’s two decade domination of the Indianapolis 500.
 
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