After all the hype of the recent NASCAR All-Star Weekend that touted the addition of a new “softer” tire that Goodyear designed specifically to wear out quicker than the primary tire compounds as a way to inject some much needed excitement into NASCAR’s short track issues after the launch of the Generation 7 racecar (a.k.a. Next Gen Racecar) failed to deliver.
Ever since 2022 when the “Next Generation Racecar”, which I call the Generation 7 racecar (it’s the 7th major change to the NASCAR Cup Series race cars in it’s 76 years of existence), has helped fix one major issue over the Gen 6 racecar, and that was it made the Intermediate tracks, or tracks that are a mile and a half tracks which make up the bulk of the NASCAR season a much better race to watch, but it came at the expense of the short tracks. In the past the short tracks of Richmond and Martinsville Virginia and Bristol Tennessee were some of the most anticipated raced to watch as the cars were in confines of half mile and 3/4 mile lengths, and it wasn’t too uncommon for the drivers to get into each other during the event. Then after some of the beating and banging for fireworks between the drivers to be set off, and fans could see fights and even heated “aggressive negations” between said drivers. However since the 2022 season the short tracks have had one major issue that seems to be frustrating fans and drivers. It’s harder than hell to pass any cars on track. However that was until the March 2024 running on the concreate version of the Bristol Motor Speedway when Goodyear accidently had an issue with the tire compound that they brought for that weekend.
The 2024 Spring race at Bristol was the return to the concrete version of Bristol for that race, and since the 2021 season the track had brought in dirt to cover the track to make the only dirt track that the NASCAR cup series had driven on in decades as a way to increase the view base and attendance for the spring race at Bristol Motor Speedway. The spring race for years at the track was a race that didn’t always have the greatest attendance, but as a contrast for the fall “Night” race which was always a packed house. However the 2024 spring race at Bristol had some aspects that made it an unexpected and fun race for the fans and the drivers. For some reasons the tires would “fall off a cliff” after the first 30 laps which lead to multiple passes for position and the lead. It was like the tires were just ripping themselves apart after a run of about thirty laps. As teams started to understand that they needed to save tires the longevity of the tire started to increase over the race with some teams eventually getting tires to not fall off for closer to sixty laps. NASCAR nor Goodyear know exactly what caused the tires to fall off so quickly. One of the main reasons that they couldn’t pick one aspect was that Goodyear had a different tire compound for the track, the air and track temp was lower than expected, and Bristol used the typical resin as a grip agent in the low lines of the track instead of the PJ-1 compound that was used in the past at Bristol. Goodyear at the time had no idea if the resin was the reason, if it was the lower temps not allowing the tires to “lay down rubber” as normal, or if the compound that they used for the weekend tires was just off and not as durable as the tires had been in the past. Whatever the reason the race was exciting to watch, and some of the drivers were having a blast as it was the closest thing to an old school Bristol race where managing the tire wear was paramount. Whatever caused the issues it was clear that while Goodyear panicked, the fans had the best short track race in the first three seasons of the Next Gen/Gen 7 era.
Over the past few weeks NASCAR and Goodyear touted this red lettered softer tire compound for the 2024 NASCAR All-Star Race at the historic and newly repaved North Wilksboro Speedway in the mountains of North Carolina seemed to fall flat on it’s face Sunday night. The tire was designed to give some more speed to the cars, but it was at the expense of tire degradation which would lead to people on the normal or “primary” yellow lettered sidewall tires to eventually catch and possible pass those who remained on the soft compound. However while in test run earlier in the weekend showed that after around 60 – 75 laps or around 30 – 38 miles (North Wilksboro is a half mile track) the soft tire compound would be used up and the driver’s lap times would start to drop by a significant margin. The only issue between the practice sessions and the race was the air and track temps. The practice sessions were ran during the day with the sun shining down on the track, and the track temp being much warmer. The “Open Race” which is the race that allowed the top two finishing drivers and one other driver based on the NASCAR fan vote to advance to the All-Star race was running in the late evening when temperatures would start to cool off and the track temps to do the same. The All-Star race began under the setting sun and raced under the new lights at the historic track. The lower air and track temps also seemed to mitigate the fall off of the softer tire compound, and made the track much more difficult to pass those who stayed on the primary tire compound. Joey Logano who was the pole sitter only changed his tires once at the mandated tire change pit stop at the 100 lap half way point. He went to the 2nd and final set of soft tires. Most other drivers stopped after the initial caution on lap 2 for an incident (this lead to a post race fight) between Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. On the first caution a good portion of the field came down to switch to the primary tires (so that they could switch back to the “scuffed” or slightly used soft tire they removed) at lap 100, and then go to a new set of softs at the other scheduled caution with 50 laps to go (lap 150). The funny part was that Joey Logano, who’s tires were supposed to really fall off after lap 75 was able to hang with and pass and put drivers a lap down that went to the longer durability “primary” tires after lap 2. Which meant that Logano (and the others in the top 4 or 5) that stayed on the original soft tires were able to last for the full 100 lap run without falloff. The same happened in the last half of the event, and only Kyle Larson was able to get into the top five after he made a stop to go to a new set of soft tires at the caution on lap 150. Even with a set of new softs that were fifty laps newer he was unable to run down Chris Buescher, Denny Hamlin, and race winner Joey Logano. So it’s obvious that the tires failed, right?
Well, not so quick there. The tires DID falloff during the practice session that were run during the sunny times of the weekend. So the tires did do as expected, but it seems that Goodyear didn’t design the tire to have the same properties at night. What can NASCAR do to help the short track problems.
Most fans and most drivers want NASCAR to give them stronger and allow more horsepower from the engines for the short track package. NASCAR doesn’t want to do that as it “might be too expensive for owners to design a new engine package.” Currently NASCAR allows the CUP series drivers to have a maximum horsepower of 550 at the pack racing tracks of Daytona, Talladega, and Atlanta Motor Speedway. They allow the engines to produce a max of 670 horsepower at the other tracks. This is done so that the cars are kept under 200 mph at the drafting/pack racing tracks tracks, and so that teams can get more than just one race per engine at the other tracks. Perhaps it’s time to allow teams to go back to 800 or 900 horsepower at the three short tracks. This way it would allow the cars to need to manage the wear of the tires with the added power going to the rear tires. It may be time to test that, as it seems to be the only thing left to try and breath some life into the short tracks for this era. Otherwise the events at Richmond, Martinsville, Bristol, and now North Wilksboro might be races that fans skip in both viewing and attendance. Hopefully NASCAR management will get their heads removed from their rear ends and actually do something to make these six to seven races each year mean as much as they did in the past.
The Randomness of Random 