Goodyear—a company whose tires have been equipped on 14 Le Mans-winning cars—announced that they are going all in on developing tires for the start of the 2019-2020 FIA World Endurance Championship, a series that includes the famed 24 Hours of Le Mans. They'll be developing the new tires right alongside their current Eagle F1 SuperSport tires, which can only mean …
As a club racer, who cares. They barely support our programs.
Nothing really new,they own Dunlop which had been already in the WEC so they are just rebadging the tires Goodyear.
As a small time road and stock car racer, I'd have a hard time buying a Goodyear race tire over a Hoosier or an American Racer, but I doubt they will ever come back to the short tracks.
Translation: "Crap... NASCAR viewership is down... we need to diversify..."
Wow, so much negativity for an American company returning to a sport many of us watch and follow. Sounds like good news to me. Oh yes, I forgot, if it costs more than $0.001 no one is interested and being the internet everyone must outdo themselves with smart ass derogatory comments.
Goodyear will never again be my tire provider, their dealers and factory refused to honor a valid warranty on 2 brand new Marathon (Crapathon) trailer tires. Use caution if you buy their tires !
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
They are still a business and the post above yours kind of illustrates the point.
Personally I'm more interested in them at a grassroots level. Autocross tires, club racing, stage rally, that sort of thing. It's great that they're headed where they're headed, but I'm not a purchaser in those markets.
In the hose world Goodyear went away and Continental or Conitech is the new name. The Goodyear name is strong in tires but no more in hose and rubber.
Just more useless trivia from Datsun310Guy.
In reply to Adrian_Thompson :
Yes, negativity. They threw short track racers to the wolves. American racer stepped up, hired most of the race tire people who Goodyear had canned, and provides better service than Goodyear did.
I have very little interest in Goodyear and their success.
I couldn’t care less what happened to Goodyear , it’s an eerie feeling whenever I’m in Akron and I go by the old Goodyear R&D offices and it’s a ghost town and whatever factories are left they’re a shame to what they have become,
Akron the Tire Capital of the World , they left it in shambles and not justv Goodyear but all of the tire manufacturers, they’re all gone , they all just left a token presence except Firestone which of course is Firestone no longer but a different stone from Japan , nice job Firestone, I will buy Hoosiers for my racing tires all day long , screw the rest .
Does Goodyear even still make a tire for our market? I've had a few sets of their Assurance Tripletred tires for the Supras over the years (pretty good tire up to the mid-300whp range if you only have the option of one set of tires), and ran one set of GS-D3's on a Miata back in the day, but other than that... they've been off my radar for years.
In reply to te72 :
Depends on your definition of "our". I have most of a set of Eagle F1s for my Volvo, that were new-car takeoffs from a Focus ST. The guy I bought them from drove them for about 3000mi and then switched to more autocross-specific rubber.
As UHP tires go, they're okay. Not 10/10ths tires, which is fine by me.
I need to replace two of them before I mount them, which is where the problem lies: unless I find someone else selling low mile FoST takeoffs, the price difference between two new Goodyears and four new BFGs is low enough to be compelling. Goodyears are just plain expensive, and they don't have the quality to back that up the way Michelin does.
In reply to pizzaman1 :
Rubber Capital of the World!
I still haven't forgiven Goodyear for killing the F1 GS-D3. That was an awesome 3-season tire for the MINI.
I don’t really have any personal history good or bad with them, but I’m glad to see another tire in WEC. Just makes things more interesting.
Having grown up in a family whose patriarch started out in the tire business in 1919 I grew up, and lived, hearing and seeing nothing good about Goodyear.
On the other hand tire competition is good.
Look at what the the Indy F1 fiasco did to Michelin, woke them up all right. I wish tires were still "free" in F1. Bring on Goodyear, Bridgestone, Michelin, etc. into the mix so the best rises to the top.
They also own Falken and Kelly. I think that tire manufacturers are so intertwined that it's hard to distinguish one from another.
mazdeuce - Seth said:Personally I'm more interested in them at a grassroots level. Autocross tires, club racing, stage rally, that sort of thing. It's great that they're headed where they're headed, but I'm not a purchaser in those markets.
luckily they're interested in the GRM type market. they have a new tire coming this summer in a bunch of sizes. 1Lap 1LE has a set ordered..
lateapexer said:They also own Falken and Kelly. I think that tire manufacturers are so intertwined that it's hard to distinguish one from another.
Kelly yes, Dunlop yes, Douglas yes, Falken no.
There was a joint venture with Sumitomo several years ago, and some of their tires are still sold with the Dunlop name. Sumitomo owns Falken.
Ian F said:I still haven't forgiven Goodyear for killing the F1 GS-D3. That was an awesome 3-season tire for the MINI.
I only owned the set of GS-D3's I had for a short time, but wow... what a tire for the street. Never used that car for competition, but did some VERY spirited runs along a local canyon road a few times, and those tires opened my eyes to the possibility of what a car at 9.5/10ths is like. Not much room for error, but what a ride!
I'm all for more competition in the tire market, it will only benefit us, after all, as consumers. I'd love to see some wider sizes in 17's, 255 just isn't enough. Sadly, I suspect I'm of the minority on that one though...
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