The NASCAR Sprint Series won’t be racing anywhere near the speeds Sunday they have had at Michigan International Speedway. After speeds for most of the field smashed through the 200 mile per hour barrier on the newly repaved 2 mile oval in the last few days, NASCAR and Goodyear reacted by bringing different tires for Sunday’s race.
The reaction was less about the speed and more about the problems some teams were experiencing blistering issues. NASCAR gave teams a rare extra practice session Saturday night with the new tires and the speeds were cut dramatically with Greg Biffle topping the charts with a speed of 195.647. The speed was a far cry from the 204.708 mile per hour speed Biffle put down in practice Friday.
“The tires are really hard, you can tell. It is giving up a lot of grip,” Biffle said. “It is kind of funny, you can hear the tires squealing when you first go out, before it builds temperature, you can feel it sliding on the race track. It slows the cars down and as it builds heat it actually starts to gain some of that grip back. I think the biggest thing with this tire that I remember is the first three laps off of the yellow as the hardest racing around other cars. The thing will just take off on you. That is the biggest thing we need to stay cautious of. After you get four or five laps in a run I think it will race pretty normal.” MORE>>>
Greg is the author of "The Nuts and Bolts of NASCAR: The Definitive Viewers' Guide to Big-Time Stock Car Auto Racing" and has been published in major publications across the country including the Los Angeles Times, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He was also a contributor to Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul, published in 2010, and the Christmas edition in 2016. He wrote as the NASCAR, Formula 1, Auto Reviews and National Veterans Affairs Examiner for Examiner.com and has appeared on Fox News. He holds a BS degree in communications, a Masters degree in psychology and is currently a PhD candidate majoring in psychology. He is currently the weekend Motorsports Editor for Autoweek.
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