Brad Keselowski reacts to Goodyear message to NASCAR teams before Phoenix: ‘Nobody ran those’

Ahead of the Straight Talk Wireless 500 at Phoenix over the weekend, Goodyear sent out a simple but stark reminder. The tire brand reminded teams that the recommended air pressures for the tires are not, in fact, guesses.

In other words: Use them. And if you don’t, that’s on you.

Amid a handful of tire issues, especially during the final stage of the NASCAR Cup Series race, many hearkened back to that Goodyear reminder, sent via tweet. Even Brad Keselowski was asked about it during an appearance on the Dale Jr. Download this week.

“I did, yes,” Keselowski said, asked if he had seen the reminder. “It was good.”

It was also mostly meaningless to many drivers. They were never going to follow the Goodyear to-the-letter recommendation.

“I can promise you nobody ran the recommended pressures at Phoenix,” Keselowski said. “Whatever they run, there’s always kind of like this inside joke in the garage area, like just subtract two. And that’s probably still safe. But nobody ran those.”

Given the issues some teams saw blowing out tires late, you might wonder why. And it’s simple, really.

Drivers are trying to squeeze every ounce of speed out of the car. And sometimes gaming the Goodyear tire pressure a bit can make all the difference.

“Because we want to win,” Keselowski said. “I’ll give Goodyear a lot of credit. You know, the drivers went to them and said, ‘We want a tire that falls off more, we want you to be more aggressive.’ They fired back, ‘Well, it makes us look like crap.’ The drivers went back to Goodyear and kind of made like a pact, ‘We won’t say bad things about you if you build us an aggressive tire and it blows out.'”

To the drivers’ credit, there wasn’t much public backlash from them over the Goodyear tires at Phoenix. It’s sort of understood now — you mess with the recommendations and that’s on you.

So we may see more adventurous gambling down the road. But keep an eye on one thing. The public discourse.

“The pact has stuck together so far,” Keselowski said. “But if it comes apart then like everybody loses.”