NASCAR insiders clarify Goodyear tire controversy from Bristol Night Race

The Round of 16 finale at Bristol was universally panned by the NASCAR community for being largely uneventful and unexciting.

Kyle Larson dominated the race from start to finish, leading 462-of-500 laps. Larson had the best car and while there’s no disputing that, the rest of the action was deemed a problem. The lack of tire fall-off has been cited by some as the main reason, as opposed to the spring race where tire wear was extreme.

Jeff Gluck of The Athletic, speaking on “The Teardown” podcast after this past Sunday’s race at Kansas, said that Goodyear assured him the same tire that was used at the spring race was used 10 days ago in the playoff race.

“For the record, even though it seems unlikely, and some people will never be convinced otherwise that it was the same tire, Goodyear feels like they have gone back and checked every level of their distribution in every way from the rubber to the make, whatever. And they feel like it was the same tire. The exact same tire and could somebody have made a mistake? They think no,” Gluck said. “They have checked with their supplier for the rubber, everything. Every level of it, they’ve gone back through and asked people what was going on.”

Larson recorded a 7.1-second margin of victory and put together the third most dominant Bristol win of all-time. There were just eight lead changes throughout the race. Denny Hamlin took the checkered flag by just one second in March in a race featuring 54 lead changes. 

Goodyear explains theory for nonexistent tire fall-off at Bristol Night Race

The theory, according to Goodyear, is that the amount of rubber on the track, the temperature difference and the combination of how the track was treated, contributed to the lack of tire fall-off. Goodyear conducted a six-car tire test at Bristol in July. The results were consistent with what happened in the spring race, but obviously, that did not carry over to the fall.

“I guess the theory is that the amount of rubber that was on the track in the different series, the slight temperature difference and the combination of when they treated the track, when the resin was put down, when the PJ1 was put down — that affected it. That was enough to affect it. And apparently the stuff is in small enough windows that Goodyear was misled by going back.

“I think they had six cars at the July test when it was 90 degrees. And the tire did the same thing as in the spring… What they didn’t account for was maybe six cars is not enough to rubber in the track… Do the teams all agree with that? No, I don’t think so. I don’t know that everybody’s sold on that.”

Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic put the blame squarely on Goodyear.

“The people I talked to — I just feel like there is a disconnect,” Bianchi said. “There’s something that happened between what we saw in the spring and what we saw last week. And how can you have two widely different tire wear issues? I just don’t see it and I stand by what I said, I feel like this is on Goodyear’s shoulders. You haven’t been able to figure out at what happened in the spring to cause that tire wear.”