The following day he tested tires at Darlington, a piece of unfinished business on the newly repaved speedway. And on Friday at Bristol, Gordon said the choice of tire at Bristol might cause problems for the second straight week, particularly if rain washes the rubber from the track before Sunday's Food City 500 Sprint Cup race.
"I'll be honest with you," Gordon said. "I question what they did here at Bristol. They have a new left side, right side -- new left side construction, compound; right side compound that has never been tested here. They are going off last year's race, but we've made our cars better and we are seeing some high wear. Now the track was green (Friday), but we have different characteristics -- high wear -a nd if this rain keeps up, Sunday is going to be an issue.
"(I'm) not trying to throw Goodyear under the bus here. It's just that testing these tires is crucial. I don't know what we have to do to get the proper amount of teams and dates for that to happen."
To Goodyear's credit, the tire company decided to return to Darlington for additional testing, feeling the data gathered during Monday's session with Gordon, Ryan Newman and Greg Biffle wasn't sufficient to make a definitive choice on tires for the May 10 Dodge Challenger 500.
"The three teams that were at Darlington this past week are going back for a half day," Gordon said. "We feel like we learned a lot, but coming out of there, we feel like they could actually come back with something that's going to be even more suited - left sides to right sides -- and they (Goodyear) feel confident in that, too. So we're going to go back there and run a few more hours on Wednesday evening."
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