RACE: Valvoline Runoffs: Goodyear Racing preview

Goodyear-shod racers hold historic advantage at Runoffs

LEXINGTON, Ohio (Sept. 16, 2003) -- The Sports Car Club of America Valvoline Runoffs is amateur road racing's Holy Grail, the goal of every non-professional sports car racer in the United States. The Runoffs weekend is a gathering of the nation's best equipment and drivers, all with a shot at winning a national championship.

And no tiremaker knows more about winning at the Runoffs than Goodyear. In the last two years, Goodyear-equipped cars have won 26 national championship races. That's more than all other tiremakers combined. Drivers racing on Goodyear tires earned podium finishes in 70.8 percent of the races the last two years and swept all three steps on the winner's podium nine times.

"The Runoffs weekend is a very important one to us," said Bob Shaffer, Goodyear's marketing manager for sports car racing. "It's a very high-profile event and one in which we go head to head with virtually every tiremaker involved in racing."

The big event will be held at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, a popular natural terrain road course that has hosted every type of road racing series America has to offer.

SCCA racing offers classes for every kind of car, from full-bodied sedans to open-wheeled formula cars. That variety of racecars requires the full spectrum of tires: radials and bias-ply, tread patterns and slicks as well as an assortment of rubber compounds for all kinds of track conditions, dry and wet, hot and cool. Through the years, cars racing on Goodyear tires have won Runoffs titles in every type of climatic condition and in every type of car.

Few drivers have had the kind of success in the Runoffs that John Heinricy has had. The winner of the last two Touring-1 championships, Heinricy became the first driver in Runoffs history to lap the field in his national championship race in 2001. He did it on Goodyear rain tires under soggy track conditions.

This year, Heinricy is one of four drivers using Goodyear tires with a chance to win the SCCA Triple Crown by winning a divisional championship, the June Sprints and the Runoffs. Last year only Mike Cyphert, racing on Goodyear tires in the GT3 class, managed to win the Triple Crown.

The drivers using Goodyear rubber who have a shot at the Triple Crown in 2003 include two-time winner Brad Stout in Formula Vee, two-time winner Dave Weitzenhof in Formula Continental, Fabio Castellani in Formula Mazda and Heinricy.

-goodyear racing-