“I think if you would have asked the entire garage area, if anyone says they expected that going in, they’re lying to you.”
That is how Chris Gayle, crew chief of the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 and driver Denny Hamlin articulated the expectation versus the reality when it came to the tire wear projections from Friday to Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
His teammate, Adam Stevens, won the race with Christopher Bell but he had a similar take to Gayle too.
“I would have bet my house that it would have been a long-run normal Bristol, run through the stages no problem, and that was not the case,” Stevens said. “And it was apparent very early on that first run that we were going to have problems.”
Mike Kelley of HYAK Racing put it more bluntly.
“If anyone said they saw that coming, I’d call bullshit.”
On one hand, Goodyear developed a new right-side tire compound that was designed to cord in less than 100 laps but on the other hand, it did not whatsoever during the Friday afternoon practice session. The track took rubber in the afternoon sun and teams were able to run well over 50 laps without discernable wear.
Thus, on Sunday afternoon, when the garage opened, a quick casual poll of crew chiefs indicated that this would be every Bristol Night Race of the NextGen era. Instead, as the green flag waved with an ambient temperature of 71 degrees and a track temperature of 89 degree, tires started to cord within the first 20 laps.
For the sake of reference, Friday afternoon was 83 degrees ambient and a 100 degree surface temperature.
It started with pole sitter AJ Allmendinger and then playoff contender Austin Dillon. By 40 laps, everyone had made their first stop with cording throughout the field. At one point around lap 25, spotter Coleman Pressley told Joey Logano ‘it’s happening’ and indeed it was.
Again, Stevens was caught off guard like everyone else due to Saturday’s session.
“It’s obviously cooler today, but it’s not like it’s cold, and the track temp was probably above the threshold that I would have guessed would have produced a race like that,” Stevens said. “I would say us and 99 percent of the field were not optimized to that. It was fun, though.”
Joe Gibbs Racing competition director Chris Gabehart, who won the infamous 2024 spring race with Denny Hamlin that nudged NASCAR down this path, is still convinced this is a matter of track temperature.
“I mean I know it’s extremely track temperature sensitive and I don’t think (Goodyear) has their handle on why or what, obviously, and I don’t mean that begrudgingly,” Gabehart said. “That’s just a fact.
“You know, the first time it happened two springs ago, there was some track temperature things going on and it took us by surprise. Then earlier this year in practice, it happened, but I knew it was going to get a lot hotter and it rubbered right on up.
“So, I think track temperature is clearly a main ingredient that we are aware of but we don’t know all the things they have going on behind the scenes either.”
Did tonight surprise Hendrick Motorsports vice president of competition Chad Knaus?
“It did actually,” Knaus said. “I thought, based on what we saw in practice and the amount of laps that some cars ran, I thought we were going to be fine, honestly. It was pretty obvious, about eight laps into the race, that we weren’t.”
Denny Hamlin knew two laps into the race.
“It was a surprise to all of us,” Hamlin said. “Really, in retrospect, I knew on the second lap because I came off the corner and had a really tight moment and I felt the right front kind of shred. I just thought ‘oh, we tightened up too much’ but then I remembered that was the same feeling we had the beginning of the spring race in 2024.”
Drew Blickensderfer, crew chief for Noah Gragson at Front Row Motorsports, had the most unusual take of anyone.
UV light.
“I think we found out for a lot of years, that it is just as much about UV light than it is surface temperature, and who knows why we didn’t have this last fall,” Blickensderfer said. “But yeah, I think it was surprising to everyone by Lap 35 when we saw it happening again.”
Again, this was all according to plan from Goodyear’s standpoint, and that was expressed on the USA broadcast by Justin Fantozzi, Global Race Tire Operations Manager.
“The industry has asked for this,” Fantozzi said. “We’ve got the best drivers, the best crew chiefs. We’re going to ask them to manage it. And we’re delivering on exactly what we were asked to do.”
So, should this be the new normal for Bristol?
Chase Briscoe got out of his car and said he doesn’t want to do this ever again.
How about Hamlin, since he won the 2024 version of this kind of race?
“I like this type of racing (but) I’d like to plan for it,” Hamlin said. “But you don’t get as much chaos if you planned for it. But certainly, a version of this. I’d like to know that we can run 60 to 70, because then we know we could run hard, and I was just not in a position where I could run hard tonight.”
This is the tire Goodyear said they would deliver though.
Knaus doesn’t like it, personally.
“I don’t know,” Knaus said. “There is a quote that says ‘doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, which is the definition of insanity.’
“This isn’t the way I like racing.”
Because it isn’t predictable?
“Because no one raced,” Knaus said. “We didn’t race. We drove around and conserved tires and that isn’t good racing from my perspective. But Goodyear is in a really tough spot because they are trying to appease everyone and I hate it for them.
“Goodyear works really, really hard to build us a good durable tire and I hate that now they have to build us something like this.”
Gabehart wishes for something else too.
“The first time was cool because it was a novelty,” Gabehart said. “But we ran, maybe, 13 laps as hard as we could tonight and that’s a shame for Bristol because you come here as a driver and you want them to be standing on top of the steering wheel for 500 laps, and not riding around at pace laps.
“So I think we’re getting off the mark here a little bit for where we need to be.”
But remember, NASCAR and Goodyear pursued this direction because the NextGen car has also made these races procedural and uneventful without help from the tire compound.
What does Gabehart want?
“The left sides aren’t wearing enough,” he said. “They really, really, really have to go to work on the left sides of this track and get a right side that will live. I know they will work on it.
“I think they are getting us on the right track with tires everywhere, even Dover and intermediates need some work now that they understand the limits of the tire, and hopefully they can get us where we need to be there too.”
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