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Re: Mickey's Innovative Dragsters

To: "John Burk" <joyseydevil@comcast.net>,
Subject: Re: Mickey's Innovative Dragsters
From: "Joe Lance" <jolylance@earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2005 17:04:53 -0500
John;
I'm sure you're right about Mickey, Goodyear, and the tires for the LS
Challenger. But I was refering specifically to Indy 500 tires, it was Foyt 
( in 63, I believe)
that went straight to the top in Akron to get Goodyear to get into the
business of supplying Indy car tires because he thought the tires Firestone
was supplying him and the other 500 competitors (other than the more
specialized tires for Mickey's Indy cars and the rear engine English cars)
were crappy and dangerous. Not something I just read, but got a lot of the
story from Eddy Alexander who as the Goodyear racing engineer was not
exactly impartial, but still a good guy.
.
Firestone supplied the wide, small diameter tires for Mickey's Indy 500 cars 
(I believe the historical photos would show this) because Goodyear, at that 
specific time, didn't want to do that specific application. But Goodyear did 
do the earlier 1959 Challenger tires to Mickey's specs after Firestone 
turned him down (they didn't think he could make 400 mph).

Lance


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "John Burk" <joyseydevil@comcast.net>
To: "land-speed" <land-speed@autox.team.net>
Cc: "Joe Lance" <jolylance@earthlink.net>
Sent: Sunday, December 18, 2005 11:53 PM
Subject: Fw: Mickey's Innovative Dragsters


> Joe
> You can't believe all you read but this clip I found in the internet is
> the
> way I remember reading about it at the time . I'm shure the story is not
> that simple .
>
>
> ( Mickey had gone to various major companies and asked them for tires
> capable of going well over 400 MPH. The Reaction: negative, Get Lost .
> Until
> he went to Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> I think it was somewhat different on the tires---Firestone supplied the
>> specialized tires for Mickey's car and the invading European rear-engine
>> cars and A.J. Foyt thought the Indy tires Firestone was supplying to him
> and
>> the other competitors were terrible.
>>  So Foyt was the guy who got Goodyear to come to Indy




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