Bristol Night Race: Goodyear operations manager reacts to NASCAR playoff race tire performance, extra set

Goodyear, NASCAR‘s tire supplier, brought a new tire to Bristol Motor Speedway for Saturday’s Round of 16 finale. Drivers called for softer tiers, and Goodyear delivered.

To this point, the tire fall off has been significant. So much so, that NASCAR has issued another set of tires to the teams. Justin Fantozzi, Goodyear’s operations manager, told NBC Sports that the tire is doing exactly what it was intended to do.

“The team’s working really hard getting this extra set mounted, balanced and ready,” Fantozzi said. “We’re gonna go back to the same amount of sets that we had in the spring race where we saw the same sort of condition. We’re ready to go. The industry has asked for this. We got the best drivers, the best crew chiefs. We’re gonna ask them to manage it. And we’re delivering on exactly what we were asked to do.”

New Goodyear tires showing severe wear at Bristol

Goodyear struck gold in the spring 2024 race, which saw 54 lead changes and 3,589 total passes under green flag conditions. Goodyear has failed to replicate it in the last two Bristol races, but they’ve figured it out — and then some — for this one.

The teams practiced on the new softer tire on Friday, and they did not cord. That was during the day when temperatures were higher. It’s now nighttime and temperatures are in the mid 60s. Suddenly, this looks a lot like the spring 2024 race.

“The temperatures have gotten really cool right now. I’m in a sweater,” Fantozzi said. “And as that temperature has dropped, it’s returned back to what we saw spring 18 months ago. So, the tire’s behaving exactly as it should.”

The severe tire wear has made for a chaotic race, and we still have 200 laps to go. It’s anybody’s race, but it’s clear the teams who manage the tires the best will be there at the end.