JOLIET, Ill. -- With temperatures in the 90s, this wasn't a good day for tires.
Carl Edwards, Dave Blaney, Elliot Sadler and Michael Waltrip blew out right-front tires Sunday during the USG Sheetrock 400 at Chicagoland Speedway. Jimmie Johnson and Kevin Harvick pitted, anticipating they were about to lose tires.
"We were just wearing the right rear tire out," Johnson said after coming back from a lap down for a third-place finish. "Other guys had trouble in practice. ... We must have been too aggressive with our setup and overworked the right rear tire."
Harvick, the 14th-place finisher, dropped from fifth to 30th when he pitted late.
Edwards blew the right-front tire on his Ford on the 79th lap, sending him into the wall. Blaney's tire went on the 118th lap, and Sadler's Ford hit the wall on the 164th of 267 laps on the 1½-mile oval. Waltrip's blowout occurred on the 215th lap.
"I don't know if I ran over something or what happened, but by the time I realized it going into turn one, it was too late and it got up in the wall," said Blaney, who was in a Chevrolet.
Waltrip's tire also blew in the first turn.
"I hadn't seen any problems with the right front," he said. "We'd been tearing up the right rear a little bit. ... We just kept having a little bit of tire problems here and there. The left front would be flat one time. The right rear would be blistered, and then the right front blew out. So there is really no trend; just a bad day."
Goodyear Tires product manager Rick Heinrich said the problem appeared to be that the tires were too good.
"We don't really have the type of tire wear that we'd like to have on the right side tires," he said. "Tire wear is one of the important things that keeps a tire cool. Tire wear dissipates heat. ... Tire wear is actually very good. It's part of what helps keep a tire cool. The blisters are caused by heat."
There were no injuries reported.
