Kevin Harvick levies dissenting opinion on NASCAR option tire with a caveat

NASCAR made two sets of its soft option tires available for last week’s race at Phoenix, giving drivers some customization in terms of their strategy. Many took different paths.

But not everyone was an outright fan of the option tires. They certainly introduce more variability to the mix.

“Christopher Bell had a strong opinion on the two tires in the race that he mentioned in the victory lap, and I tend to agree with him on that,” Kevin Harvick said on the Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast. “I think that two tires in a race is a little bit gimmicky. I think in this scenario it gave us a good… I liked the fact that NASCAR and Goodyear said, ‘Hey, let’s have the option tire in this race.’

“It added a lot of elements for us to talk about. But I agree with Christopher on the gimmicky side of it in a championship race scenario, with all the timing of the cautions and everything that can come out.”

That’s the biggest issue with the option tires. It can be hard to plan out your strategy as is. Then throw in the potential for some cautions coming out at inopportune times and it can really muddle the picture.

When the racing is at its best, the strategies are only subtly different and the viewer gets to see how things change as tires get some wear and tear on them. That’s not always how it plays out.

“But the main goal here was to see that softer tire, and it gives the teams some options to get out of the scenario; you didn’t have to use the softer tire. It wasn’t mandatory,” Harvick said. “But you got two sets of those tires during the race, you got one set for practice.

“And I think seeing those tires in the race, the drivers have to manage the tires. We saw (Ryan) Preece take off on those soft tires, and if he’d have run that whole run he’d have had to run right at 90 laps of that run. We saw Joey Logano do it earlier in the race where he had to manage those tires. That’s what I want to see. I want to see the tires wear out. I want to see the driver have to make choices. I want to see the driver that can take off and then fall off, then I want to see the guy that can take off, manage his tires and keep his track position.”

For Harvick, there’s just too much variability on the option tires. Too many different scenarios that can cause the whole thing to feel gimmicky.

“I think that the softer tire was well-received. It seemed to wear well,” Harvick said. “I think that when we interviewed Kyle Larson before the race, I said, ‘What’s the difference between the primary tire and the option tire?’ And he said, ‘Well, I put the option tire on and it fixes all the problems that I have with my car.’ So it’s interesting to hear guys’ different opinions, but it seemed like it was a good half a second faster than the primary tire as we went through the race. But it definitely made it entertaining for us.”