USA Today didn’t like the Brickyard 400 this weekend. Neither did our NASCAR enthusiast, Nick Bromberg.

If you were a NASCAR fan watching yesterday’s Brickyard 400, I pity you. If you weren’t a NASCAR fan and tuned into the race, then I apologize. That wasn’t the sport I love; that was unpreparedness at it’s finest.

NASCAR’s new car has mainly been a success. The racing has been pretty good, and it’s keeping the drivers safer. Yes, there’s still aerodynamic problems because the car looks like a box, but overall, the car’s performance at bigger tracks has been better than expected. Last year at Indianapolis, NASCAR ran the old car. The old car had a lower center of gravity and was much slicker; it cut through the air better.

NASCAR held a tire test at Indianapolis in April, hoping to get some information about the track. But that tire test only included three cars. Indianapolis is a track that takes time to rubber up. Track management diamond grinds the surface so that drivers can get a better feel for the effects of what many believe is the most temperature sensitive surface in racing. That diamond grinding eats up tires. With the old car, the track was abrasive on Friday, but by late Saturday and race time on Sunday, tire wear would improve and a set of tires could easily last a fuel run.

The same tire combination that was used last year was run with the new car this year. (Goodyear attempts to match up tire compounds to track surfaces; a harder tire is used at more abrasive tracks) But for whatever reason, the rubber that went on the track with the old car ended up everywhere but the track with this car. Engines and dashboards were covered in rubber dust. Even the drivers had rubber on them when they exited their cars.

On Friday, a set of tires was lasting five laps until the cords were showing. The wear didn’t get much better as the weekend went on, and NASCAR announced Sunday morning that they were going to throw a competition caution 10 laps in to check tire wear. Sure enough, when that first caution came out, cords were showing on most, if not all of the teams’ right rear tires. The 400 is a 160 lap race. Do the math.

Thanks to six competition cautions, plus cautions for other incidents, the longest green flag run of the entire race Sunday was 12 laps. A race that usually sees some fairly long green flag runs saw none. Teams like eventual winner Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon that qualified at the front stayed there thanks to good pit stops and no time for anyone to pass them. Drivers were afraid to push their cars to the edge because of fears that a tire could pop at any moment. Racing isn’t racing if drivers are scared.

Goodyear said that they came to Indy with the best tire they had for the conditions. Boy, did they screw up. Some of the blame needs to be put on NASCAR, because they work closely with Goodyear and failed to schedule a two day open test with all of the teams in attendance to get an early handle on the issue and address possible ways to correct it. But the majority of the blame should fall on Goodyear. Too often have tires been a story this season, and they were the story yesterday. Goodyear was woefully unprepared for the use of this car on big tracks, and the races this season have shown it.

Has Goodyear’s exclusive contract with NASCAR made the company complacent? Who knows. But Goodyear needs to start making some good racing tires pretty soon, otherwise that contract’s going to be worth less than some Dale Jr Budweiser merchandise.