MADISON, Ill — The debut of the alternate tire for this weekend’s Bommarito Automotive Group 500 on an oval did it’s job. The tire degraded faster than the primary tires would over the course of a run which is exactly what it was set out and asked to do. However, some drivers feel after 250 laps of racing on Sunday like it could degrade a little bit more even if decided to be used again next year.

“The tire was kind of interesting. It actually had a good amount of deg. But I think for next year, I think you’d almost want to double that deg,” said race winner Scott Dixon.

“I think having an alternate tire, you really kind of want it to – I know Firestone doesn’t want to do it because that’s the product they produce, they produce very good tires – but I think for falloff like we see at Iowa where you go from an 18-second lap all the way to 22s, 23s, you have good cars coming and going, people able to make changes throughout the race. I think that’s what they need to bring back here, a little bit more aggressive for next time.

“Ultimately it worked out. It was a tough tire to manage. Probably 15, 20 laps into my stint, I thought we were going to have to bail. We actually saw the 12 car bail off it very quickly. There were a few others you could see were really struggling with it and ultimately had to bail, as well.

“You really had to manage it, which is nice to have another kind of dimension to the race, something you really had to kind of look out for.

“Yeah, I think they could be more aggressive next year.”

Also, the unfortunate nature of why it didn’t visually work as well as intended too was due to the nature of the second lane never really coming in.

Yes the special high lane practice session was run at night on Saturday, but that honestly had no merit on why we saw a single lane track on Sunday. The low lane is the preferred lane but when the alternate tires were being used from the second stint on, it created a whole other issue – marbles.

With everyone running the lower line and the alternate degrading at the rate that it was, it was pushing the marbles up into that second lane. Once the marbles accumulated, no one dared to try to get into it because you’d become a passenger while doing so.

“It brought in some pretty horrendous marbles onto the racetrack, which made the second lane almost impossible to use,” Pato O’Ward admitted. “I don’t think I was the only one.

“I think not that the blacks don’t create marbles, but definitely this alternate tire was a special add-on to that. It made it pretty hard. The difference in grip wasn’t that big of a difference.”

“Yeah, it was pretty treacherous,” said David Malukas.

So what do you do? Degrade faster next year but more marbles gets thrown into that next lane over. Don’t degrade and then have no reason to bring it.

Seems like a complicated matter.

The other problem on Sunday was the fact that lapped cars were being in the way and not playing nicely with the leaders either. It bunched everyone up because they couldn’t use that high lane to pass.

It created a high speed processional for which frustrated the leaders.

 “If you can do whatever possible to reduce marbles and we can actually use the second lane, then the lap cars won’t be as much of an issue,” Malukas continued.

Pato O’Ward says that the drivers need to play nicer because they’re back there for a reason.

“Because if they were fast enough, we wouldn’t be catching them,” he says. “Just move. Like, you’re getting lapped, move.

“Texas, you don’t need them to move because you have a second lane. But you have nothing to do here.

“I feel it’s more of a gentleman’s agreement, but nobody follows it. I feel like I’ve followed it pretty much my all my career. If I’m not having a good day, I’m not going to screw your race.

“Hopefully that comes in return whenever I am having a good day and they’re not, which has been a few cases. Definitely it’s not everybody. But the consistent lappers, it’s like, Dude…”

As far as where they could get out of the way?

“Just slow down in the straightaway and somebody pass by. It’s super simple,” said O’Ward.