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AKRON, Ohio — A year's worth of work covers the walls of a conference room tucked in the fourth floor of the five-story Goodyear Innovation Center. Here, engineers, executives and other employees dissected charts, pictures and notes tacked to the walls. The goal? To ensure that what happened July 27, 2008, never is repeated.

Their work will be tested today as the NASCAR Sprint Cup series races at Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time since last year's tire debacle.

That day, the track grated rubber like cheese. Tires blew. Cars crashed. Drivers never ran more than 13 consecutive green-flag laps during the 160-lap race. NASCAR called six of the 11 cautions just so teams could change tires before more blew. Drivers boiled afterward, calling the event "embarrassing" and "ridiculous." One driver apologized to the fans.

Greg Stucker felt the wrath and saw the rage. ESPN questioned Goodyear's director of race tires during the event as tire wear worsened. Stucker faced more scrutiny from media hungry for answers and determined to blame someone for ruining one of NASCAR's highest-profile races.

Once the day was over, after Jimmie Johnson's victory celebration, after a final meeting with NASCAR and after the tires were collected from teams, Stucker began the 300-mile drive back here. While he left the track behind, his thoughts didn't stray from it as he drove across the flat Midwestern landscape.

"You start thinking about all the things we need to do," Stucker said. "What are the things we need to answer? What is the best way to go about finding some answers?"

What happened?

The edict was direct and came from Bob Keegan, chairman of the board of The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company.

"You put whatever resources you have, you get your brightest, your best, your smartest people on this and figure it out because, frankly, we as a company, do not need to go through that again," Stu Grant, general manager, global race tires, recalls Keegan saying shortly after last year's race.

Like a detective trying to solve a case, Goodyear first had to understand what happened.

Yes, it was the first race for NASCAR's new Car of Tomorrow at Indy, but why didn't the track build rubber throughout the race? The same tire worked well during the 2007 race.

Instead of pebble-sized marbles from the tires coating the track — and improving tire performance — there was only dust last year. Tires slid on the dusty track and wore to the cords, particularly on the right-rear tires. That forced NASCAR to call all those cautions, depriving more than 200,000 fans of the action they paid to see.

All that dust, though, would prove helpful. Goodyear collected it from the track's sweepers, which had not been cleaned, about a week after the race.

Goodyear's researchers — "they're kind of our forensic scientists," Stucker said — analyzed the dust, using electron microscopes among other tools. They examined the compounds (think of it as the tire's DNA) in the dust and what could be altered so that the tires would rubber Indy's track surface. The researchers also attended test sessions, collecting dust and tire debris from inside wheel wells and fenders of cars, among other places.

The first of what would be seven tire tests Goodyear held at Indy before today's race was with Kyle Petty. It came less than two months after last year's event. He ran several tires built for other tracks. The goal was to find what type of compound might work, as opposed to finding the correct tire. That was still months away.

A breakthrough came in an October test with 13 drivers. The tire used at Phoenix put rubber on the track. The problem was the tire generated too much heat and blistered.

It was progress, though. Goodyear needed it with winter approaching. That allowed the tire manufacturer's engineers and researchers five months to develop compounds before returning to test in April.

Mastering the technology

As Goodyear sought to solve this mystery, its approach changed. The racing department, which employees about 50 people, hadn't needed or sought help from the company's research group that often.

They began to work more closely together. Equipment within Goodyear's complex not often used by the racing group became valuable, as did new machinery.

Goodyear found the same company that ground Indianapolis Motor Speedway's surface and had that company grind part of Goodyear's test track. That way, testing could be done a short drive from Innovation Center instead of a five-hour drive away in Indianapolis.

The racing department began to use a machine at the Akron facility that it hadn't fully utilized. It reveals what kind of debris a tire releases — marbles or dust — and can be programmed to mimic what a tire goes through each lap at a track.

Goodyear bought a laser camera, big enough that it takes two people to lift. It provides detailed imagery of the track's surface. This showed if rubber built on the track and how much. It gave engineers a detailed view they'd never had.

"Now that you understand what the Indy track surface is, you can feed that back into the lab," said Andy Weimer, Goodyear's project manager of race technology. "It opens up new avenues of technology."

Back on track

Goodyear returned April 20-22 to Indianapolis for a test session with four drivers. The results left Stucker and his group unsatisfied with its compounds.

"We didn't rubber the track in as much in April as we expected to," said Rick Campbell, Goodyear's project manager, tire development for NASCAR. "That kicked off some additional work."

Goodyear had to act quickly. The track would be occupied for much of May in preparation for the Indianapolis 500.

Interrupting its regular production schedule, Goodyear built about 40 new sets of tires for the April 29 test with four teams.

Goodyear then added a test June 1-2. Several drivers, including Juan Pablo Montoya and Tony Stewart, agreed on a tire that Goodyear should consider for this race. There was one holdout. Kasey Kahne.

He liked a harder compound that didn't wear as much but slid more. Montoya, Stewart and others liked a softer compound that wore more but gave them more control. Goodyear sought a consensus. Kahne changed his mind after more laps.

"By the end of the day, we had worked on our car some more and we put the first tire back on and I was like, 'This is the best tire,' " Kahne said. "And that's what Tony and Juan were saying also."

A final test in mid-June with 14 drivers went without any problems. Goodyear had its tire for Indy. The right-side tires had a new tread compound designed to help the track build rubber.

Goodyear also swayed one of its harshest critics.

"I've gained a lot of respect for Goodyear over just the process of working on the tire for Indianapolis and the dedication that they've shown to making sure that that doesn't happen again," Stewart said.

Race day

With race day here and Goodyear confident that it won't have tire problems again, Stucker reflects on the past year.

"It was pretty consuming," he said. "There was a lot of effort from the start to try to fill in all the gaps. You don't look it as more work. You just know that it's a focus and ... it has got to be done.

"You start trying to make sure we had all the answers. I think that's maybe one of the things we all took fairly personally. We missed something here."

The conference room near Stucker's office became the focal point to finding out what had been missed.

Provided today goes without any tire problems, then what of that room and all the notes, charts, graphics and pictures tacked to the walls?

"Let's hope," Stucker said, "we can just take it all down."

Contact Dustin Long at 373-7062 or dustin.long@news-record.com