Historical Motorsports Stories writes:

"Tiregate '98! Who's Soaking the Tires?"

Posted by nascarman on October 4, 2018

Viewed 7768 times Tweet It's a scandal! Week after week, the same team keeps winning. Anonymous sources say they're cheating and it's time to tell everyone.



Thus was the controversy surrounding Jeff Gordon's record-setting year in 1998. After winning his ninth race of the season, Gordon's team was publicly accused of manipulating their tires in order to get an advantage. For several weeks, NASCAR was consumed by the "Tiregate" controversy.





(John Bohn/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)



On August 30, 1998, Jeff Gordon won the "Farm Aid on CMT 300" at New Hampshire International Speedway. The summer of '98 belonged to NASCAR's newest superstar. Gordon's victory at the "Magic Mile" was his sixth win in eight races. Following him all the way, Mark Martin had five second-place runs and a win in those same eight races.



But Gordon's win at New Hampshire was suspicious. Despite winning the pole, Gordon fell back through the field. By lap 100, he was running 16th. On lap 200, he rose to 7th. The race changed on lap 231 when race leader, Mark Martin, spun Rich Bickle while lapping him. During the following pit stops, Gordon's team took only two tires and moved him from 5th to first. It seemed his car just got faster with only two tires, those who got four couldn't pass Gordon as he led the final 67 laps.



What followed after the race was astonishing. It was a rare case of a team owner claiming a competitor was cheating and telling on them to NASCAR.



Earlier that week, Martin's owner, Jack Roush was sent something interesting in the mail. It was an anonymous letter and some tire softening chemicals. Whoever wrote the letter claimed Jeff Gordon's team was using the highly-illegal substance to treat their tires and gain an advantage. If the tires were softer, or at least just a few sets of them, they'd have more grip. After winning six out of the last eight races, especially on only two tires on New Hampshire, Roush went to the officials.



Shortly after the race was over, NASCAR placed Gordon's pit stall on lockdown. And despite Roush making the accusations, officials did the same to Mark Martin's pit because of how well he had been running. As NASCAR confiscated the tire supply of both teams, an argument broke out in the garage.



Ray Evernham claimed Gordon's car was tight, by putting on two tires, he was able to make the car turn better. That's why he was faster. Angry over the implications, he entered the Martin garage stall to confront Roush over the allegations. The angry car owner ordered him to get out before Evernham emphatically replied, "Air! Air's what we put in there!"







Tire softening chemicals were a widely known product in auto racing; legal some places, illegal in NASCAR. "Soaking the tires" meant applying the chemicals at the race shop, allowing them to soak into the rubber, and eventually making them softer with more grip. The good stuff was supposedly undetectable by any form of analysis. The treated tires could then be brought to the track with no suspicions. NASCAR rules allowed tires not used by a team earlier in the season to be brought back to the same track and used later.



NASCAR took the tires and sent them away to a laboratory. Everything that went into that rubber would supposedly be found. While they waited for the results to come back, bystanders were treated to a week-long, back-and-forth public argument between everyone involved.



"The only disappointing thing to me is Jack Roush took away from our win," Gordon told the media. "I lost a lot of respect for Jack. I hope he'll apologize to our team. They don't deserve that."



"If anyone is going out there cheating and getting away with things, I don't know how they could live with themselves afterward," he said. "Ray and guys on our team have a conscience, and want to do it fair and square." Evernham was a little more angry.





(Craig Jones/Getty Images)



"Honestly, 15 years ago, probably if I was back in New Jersey, I would have driven up behind the truck and slapped (Roush) around," Evernham said in a Charlotte Observer Article. "But I started to realize that it doesn't matter what people say about you."



"Jack Roush is ignorant of this sport. I've grown up in this sport," he continued. "I'm not an engineer... but this is what I do. I know how to do it. I do it better than him, so what he's got to say really doesn't hurt me."







Meanwhile, Roush refused to back down from his claims and from his sources.



"The thing that motivated me to speak out... was the fact that I had received some material from a reputable source indicating that (the tire softening agent) was undetectable and that my competition was using it," said Roush. "It came with instructions on how to use it and was packaged in such a way that I believe it was being disseminated in the garage area."



Despite the ongoing laboratory testing, expectations of catching anything were low. "I don't think they'll find anything," Mark Martin said. Roush agreed.



"The material given to me was represented as being undetectable," Roush said. "The other scenario, when you use chemicals (as a softener) that were used in the manufacture of the tire, would also be undetectable. They would have to be pretty stupid to use something that NASCAR could easily find with traceable chemical testing techniques. So I really didn't think we would find anything.



"But if there were people doing that and it helps put them on notice and if it stops, well that's a gain."



Gordon ended the week of controversy where he started it, in victory lane. By winning the Southern 500, his 10th win of the year, Gordon extended his points lead by 132 points.







A week later, the lab results came back. There was nothing wrong with the tires. While the tire-altering chemicals claimed to be undetectable even in lab testing, Goodyear said that was just advertising.



"In an analytical lab," Goodyear engineer Tony Freund said, "it will be very, very obvious if someone (chemically) soaked the tires. No one can get away with it because the tire is changed."



Who was right? Could it be caught or not? Either way, NASCAR was satisfied.



Gordon eventually won a modern-era record 13 races in 1998 and earned his third championship in four years. Following the controversy, NASCAR created a new rule which banned teams from bringing their own tires to the track. Going forward, all tires had to be bought at the track and mounted by Goodyear on race weekends. The rule change ended any controversy about manipulation. Teams just had to find new ways to accuse their opponents of cheating.





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