My thoughts exactly...

Some incredible history posted in this thread....Thanks for sharing!!!

great photos , thanks for posting

The mysterious time capsule that went missing... Literally NOBODY at IMS or anywhere else for that matter knows where this item disappeared to. It was scheduled for opening in 2017 and we started asking about it already in 2015...

I would have a hard time letting that car go if I owned it. Just amazing history.

There seems to be a little confusion on my part. Hopefully someone can clarify.

1. Why was it necessary to swap out the tires? Did the originals wear out or not meet requirements?

2. Why would the spare be changed also?

3. Did I misunderstand or miss something along the way?

Great history and car!! I'm sure it's tough to let it go!

possibly had something to do with a sponsorship deal with Firestone or ad campaign that they wanted to do.

It is all theories at this point.

What is known is that the engineering build order should have stated the change but did not.

The pace car activity book (which survives today) specified Dave Welday as the individual responsible for all at track modifications on the pace cars. Since Dave did not recall authorizing a tire change he concluded that the tires must have been cosmetically marked because the tire reps from both Goodyear and Firestone were image conscious and blemished tires were being identified after arrival at the track.

Nobody reached the conclusion that there would be a deviation in complete tire specification, yet here we are. The whole set including the spare.

My theory at this point is that the original tires were examined for wear prior to the actual race and somebody at Firestone convinced GM that the original firestones needed to be changed for "safety". The new Larger gold letter tires were then prepped by the racing division in Akron, and express transported by Firestone to Firestone to Speedway Indiana for the swap.

Here is a Replica staged at the gate with what is believed to be a cosmetic Blem identified by the on site Goodyear reps. This car is equipped with Goodyear speedways. You can tell by the position of the red stripe on the sidewall.

"X" Marks the Blem.

As an aside - here is my set of NOS Speedways being nitrogen mounted 14 years ago.

Factoid: You cannot judge a reproduction tire by the stripe placement. The reproduction Wide oval offered today is cosmetically incorrect because it uses a Goodyear stripe dimension on the sidewall and is embossed as a Firestone wide oval.

Detail view on an original Firestone Wide Oval D: