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NASCAR insider reveals teams are flying blind with new tire at Bristol: 'Nobody knows'

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones09/09/25brianjones_93
NASCAR tire Bristol
Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

A NASCAR insider doesn’t know what’s going to happen when the drivers and teams compete with a new tire at Bristol on Saturday night. On the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Jordan Bianchi of The Athletic was asked what the feedback has been from the drivers on the new tire.

“Nobody knows,” Bianchi said. “Even crew chiefs don’t know. Everybody’s in this box of like, we think it may be this, but we also could be completely wrong.”

Bianchi then reflected on the spring Bristol race, and he said the thoughts from the teams were that Sunday was going to be “rough.” But as the drivers competed at Bristol Motor Speedway, there was no tire wear.

“So it swung wildly from one day to the other. We don’t know,” Bianchi added. “…You can’t sit here and logically say this is what’s going to happen because you’re probably going to be completely wrong.”

More on new tire being used at the NASCAR Bristol race

NASCAR announced that the teams will race with a new, softer right-side tire from Goodyear at Bristol. It’s a big move considering it’s the final race of the NASCAR Cup Series Playoffs Round of 16, and a few playoff drivers need to perform well to not get eliminated.

Goodyear officals explained weather changes as a big reason for selecting the tire setup. “The big thing is the track temperature difference between the spring races and the fall race,” Goodyear senior project manager for NASCAR Mark Keto said, per NASCAR.com.

“We know concrete, particularly Bristol, is very finicky when it comes to track temp on this Next Gen car and the entire setup we’ve been running. As we saw in the spring of last year, we had significant higher wear, probably a little too heavy. Then, in the fall, kind of flipped the script because the warmer track temp. So we wanted to make a change. Drivers have asked us to be aggressive.”

Goodyear officials said that the left-side tire will remain the same from the Cup Series’ most recent appearance at Bristol. The new right-side tire will only appear at Bristol this Saturday. Cup Series teams will have 11 sets of tires available this weekend, nine for the race, one for practice and another set that carries over from qualifying.