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NASCAR's Brad Moran reacts to extreme tire wear at Bristol, reveals what they are looking to accomplish at short tracks

ProfilePhotoby: Nick Geddes10 hours agoNickGeddesNews
NASCAR
Randy Sartin-Imagn Images

NASCAR has been searching for a solution to fix its short track racing product. They may have found it this past Saturday in the Bristol Night Race, thanks to a new, softer right-side tire created by Goodyear.

After showing minimal fall off during Friday’s practice session, the tire wore out quickly in Saturday’s Round of 16 finale. While it caught some teams by some surprise, NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran said Tuesday it was exactly what they were looking for.

“We want tires to wear out, we want big numbers in passing, we want different leaders throughout a race, and I think the majority of people want that. It’s a real science to try to get that all put together exactly how it should be,” Moran said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “But we certainly want some tire management in there, we want two/three-wide racing, and I think we got all that.

“Again, Goodyear’s worked hard to get us there. Now, if it was probably just a slight bit of less wear, might have been more favorable but there’s no doubt about it, we’re headed in the right direction. Short tracks, people wanted more action at short tracks, and I think we delivered on that Saturday night.”

Goodyear struck gold in the spring 2024 race, which saw 54 lead changes and 3,589 total passes under green flag conditions. Goodyear failed to replicate it in the following two Bristol races, but they figured it out — and then some — for Saturday’s race. It appears the temperature, which was mid 60s throughout the race, made the difference. The industry asked for a tire that would wear more, and Goodyear delivered.

NASCAR insider identifies source of frustration for teams after unexpected Bristol race

No. 24 team crew Rudy Fugle said Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that he wasn’t sure what NASCAR’s goal was with the new tire. Moran gave the answer, though the frustration from some teams came down to the unpredictability of the tire.

“If there’s frustration, and there’s a little, there’s some, it’s the unpredictability of we go from Friday of how we described it where there’s very little fall off to what we saw tonight,” Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic said on The Teardown podcast. “And go back to the spring of this race, on the Saturday and even into Sunday morning, everybody was predicting massive tire wear, this is gonna be a repeat of what happened a year ago and then the race starts, and everybody is like, ‘Oh, no, this is not it at all.’ There’s a frustration from teams of can we at least have a sense of what this is going to be going into the race where we don’t have to run 20 laps.

“It’s not even about practice, it’s about track conditions and everything else. Apparently, and I asked this question to everybody, and Goodyear said this as well, track temperatures apparently is what this is all about. All I can deduce from this is this is great for the September Bristol race because we were at night and in cool conditions. Apparently, the spring race needs to be ran in January if we want that to be any good. That’s the only hope we have.”