Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s Director of Racing says that the organization is evaluating the cause of the tire issues at the Bristol NASCAR Cup Series race. In a statement released to Paddock Eye on Tuesday, he said:
“Right now we are evaluating the Bristol race to try to determine why the tire behaved differently than it did last fall. The drivers have been asking for higher tire wear to put more control in their hands by way of tire management, as well as with the crew chiefs to get the balance of the cars right. We tested at Bristol last June and took a step to create more wear and that’s what we brought for the September ’23 race with good results. After this past weekend, we just need to analyze why the track reacted differently than last fall – was there something different with the track prep, and we know that they applied resin in the corners as compared to PJ1 in the past. On Sunday, the wear mechanism was different for some reason. It wasn’t a structural issue with the tire itself — the tread was just wearing to where the grip went away. Overall, everyone agrees that tire wear is good for racing, and after looking back at this weekend we’re taking the positives out of it in that we want to have wear and fall-off, but maybe just not to that level.”
The statement came following the tire failures that teams suffered during the race Bristol over the weekend.