![\"NASCAR](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/GettyImages-2235277635-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBRISTOL, Tenn. \u2014 Denny Hamlin began to sense something was different on the second lap. Tyler Reddick knew when he saw chunks of rubber coming off a competitor\u2019s tires. Austin Dillon noticed the issue shortly after he pitted, thinking it was a punctured tire, only to realize that the problem was that it had worn significantly. Ryan Blaney became aware when he saw several drivers dart to pit road far sooner than expected.<\/p>\n
As it usually is lately at Bristol Motor Speedway, tire wear was again the predominant storyline during Saturday night\u2019s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race. Goodyear introduced a different right-side tire compound, aiming to achieve greater wear than what teams experienced in the spring Bristol race, when drivers could complete 50-plus laps before their tires wore out.<\/p>\n
Still, going into the weekend, no one knew whether the tires would wear and to what extent on the concrete Bristol race surface that has proven to be a challenge. When Friday\u2019s practice and qualifying sessions were completed, with drivers able to again go 50-plus laps with minimal wear, most expected Saturday\u2019s race to unfold similarly to the spring race.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe craziest thing to me is, after the practice, we all had some wear, but not like what we saw (Saturday night),\u201d said Adam Stevens, crew chief for winning driver Christopher Bell. \u201cI would have bet my house that it would have been a long-run normal Bristol, run through the stages no problem.\u201d<\/p>\n
Had Stevens wagered his house, he would\u2019ve lost.<\/p>\n
Almost immediately after the green flag waved on the 500-lap race around the half-mile oval, everyone on pit road recognized just how fast the tires were wearing.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally quick, your mind goes to how many tire sets do we have and how long the race is,\u201d said Billy Scott, Reddick\u2019s crew chief. \u201cSo it was kind of just a survival to get to a point where you could break it up enough to just have tires left.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
NASCAR\u2019s Bass Pro Shops Night Race was hard on tires but produced a compelling race. The \u201cchaos,\u201d though, left some in the garage feeling like it was too much. (Jared C. Tilton \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
On the track, some drivers realized too late what was happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cHigh heart rate,\u201d said Trackhouse Racing driver Ross Chastain, who finished 19th, explaining his thought process upon realizing what this race had evolved into. \u201cJust instant panic that I went so many laps at the start of the race, not taking care of (his tires).\u201d<\/p>\n
Within 50 laps, a majority of the field hit pit road to get fresh tires \u2014 far earlier than anticipated. Crew chiefs were forced to adapt their strategy on the fly. That deviation was made easier because many of these crew chiefs were also at Bristol in the spring of 2024, when that race unfolded much like Saturday night\u2019s, with the excessive wear forcing drivers to slow considerably to conserve their tires and pit sooner than expected.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf anybody said that they knew what was going to happen (Saturday night) or what was going to happen (Friday) in practice, we were all lying to you,\u201d said Hendrick Motorsports driver Alex Bowman, who finished eighth. \u201cWe all got it wrong. So, yeah, surprised for it not to do it in practice and to do it in the race. Kind of thought it would have done it in practice some but, I mean, it is certainly chaos, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Stevens: \u201cChaos is probably a good word to start with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why such a drastic change between Friday and Saturday? The prevailing theory is the weather. On Friday, the temperature for practice and qualifying was in the high 70s and low 80s. At the start of the race Saturday, the temperature was cooler by almost 10 degrees, which in turn produced a cooler track, one similar to the conditions of the 2024 Bristol spring race.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe temperatures have gotten really cool right now \u2026 as that temperature has dropped, it\u2019s returned (to) about what we saw in (the) spring, 18 months ago,\u201d said Justin Fantozzi, Goodyear\u2019s global race tire operations manager. \u201cSo the tire is behaving exactly like it should.\u201d<\/p>\n
Why, exactly, the temperature makes such a difference, though, is not clear.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like some magic no one can really understand,\u201d said Mike Kelley, crew chief for Ricky Stenhouse Jr. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t make sense. If anyone can ever figure this out, they\u2019re going to make a lot of money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Once drivers and teams grasped what was happening Saturday, strategy kicked in \u2014 some drivers ran hard while others went more slowly. The byproduct was 36 lead changes, the third-most all time in 127 Cup races held at Bristol.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like this,\u201d said Team Penske driver Joey Logano, who finished fifth. \u201cThis is fun, you have to use your brain more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Afterward, following one of the wildest races in Bristol\u2019s long history \u2014 and far more competitive than recent editions, which often featured limited passing \u2014 the question is how NASCAR should proceed at the unique track, popular among fans due to its history of compelling racing.<\/p>\n
The industry has been pushing Goodyear to develop a softer compound tire that wears out more quickly, and the manufacturer certainly delivered on Saturday night. However, did it wear too quickly?<\/p>\n
Some crew chiefs were displeased, noting the race wasn\u2019t so much about racing as it was about preservation. Some drivers echoed this belief, saying they prefer being able to run harder and longer.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t have that one on the bingo card going into tonight. I don\u2019t know if anyone did \u2014 truthfully,\u201d said Joe Gibbs Racing driver Chase Briscoe, who finished ninth. \u201cI don\u2019t know. It was wild.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Chastain: \u201cI don\u2019t know what just happened. I\u2019ve got to go back and look at this, because it doesn\u2019t make sense.\u201d<\/p>\n
The consensus within the garage is that, although the tires might have worn out more quickly than desired, this was still a better direction for the sport than this year\u2019s spring Bristol race. There\u2019s hope that Goodyear can use this experience to develop a tire that will exhibit slightly more wear than normal, but perhaps not quite as sensitive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis felt like this was a little more extreme,\u201d said Hamlin, who finished 31st. \u201cWe should be able to run a few more laps than what we were, and that probably would have been better for the show, but I certainly prefer a tire-wear-type of race over a tire that doesn\u2019t fall off. So it\u2019s always about being careful what you wish for. Certainly, Goodyear found the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n
(Top photo of Christopher Bell: Jonathan Bachman \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BRISTOL, Tenn. \u2014 Denny Hamlin began to sense something was different on the second lap. Tyler Reddick knew…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":427034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,393,4884,4979,13189,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-427033","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-motorsports","13":"tag-nascar","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115210011595590092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}