It could have all gone so terribly wrong. In the end, however, it turned out all right.
Shortly after the start of the 500 laps on Bristol Motor Speedway’s high banks Sunday, tire issues started to show. Several drivers had blown tires that slowed the action and began to worry many.
On average about every 30-40 laps tire issues began to show, tires went flat, and those coming off the cars showed unusual, and catastrophic wear: some were shredded, others showed the belts exposed by the loss of tread.
Teams began to try and adjust their cars; NASCAR issued an extra set of tires to the teams, some of whom were forced to put on scuffs, tires that only had one or two laps from qualifying.
What the race turned into was an old school style affair that had teams scrambling to come up with the right tire strategy led by drivers who were forced to slow and manage their tires. It was the type of racing not seen in NASCAR in many years, especially since the introduction of the Next Gen car, which was designed in part to bring parity to the field by shrinking the envelope teams could work inside of.
All that was thrown out the window Sunday. A throwback to the days when teams were forced to think on the fly, adjust during the race, and hope for the best.
“It was fantastic”, winning crew chief Chris Gabehart said. “The whole weekend was nothing what any of us expected, the driver, the crew chiefs, the engineers, the pit crew, the team, the spotter. I mean, from the minute practice was over, we suspected something was going to be different. I think a lot of us thought maybe 80, 100 in, this place would rubber in and get a little more familiar. But it did not.”
And the fact that it did not gave everyone some of the best short track racing seen in NASCAR in years. There were a record 54 lead changes, a new record that blew the old one, 40, out of the water. Fans left happy, and most of the drivers and crews did as well.
“It was a blast,” Gabehart said. “I’m not just saying that because we won. I’m saying that because it was fun to have to do something so unrefined. Everything about our business gets to be 16th of a round and 10th of an air pressure. If you just maneuver this three inches, you’ll be perfect.
“It was not going to be perfect this weekend ever. I think that made for a fantastic show.”
Goodyear brought the same tire used in the Bristol race last fall. In that race there were no issues like were seen Sunday. The only difference was resin put down on the track as opposed to the normal PJ1 compound.
“I mean, listen, certainly most of the answers you’re going to get from me today are going to be from a biased standpoint, right? We won the race,” Denny Hamlin said. “There’s probably a handful that hated what happened.
“I think if you change nothing, if you change absolutely nothing with the tire, nothing with the resin, we came back next week, many teams would make big adjustments for their cars to help with tire wear, and drivers would make adjustments. It would automatically get better no matter what.
“Do we want them wearing out in 40, 50 laps? No. That’s probably a little bit on the low end, for sure. But certainly, this is what happens when you get tire wear. There’s comers and goers. I guarantee you, surely you guys at NASCAR have sent out a stat pack of all the passes that happened today. There was times where I was leading, Ty (Gibbs) is just pressuring me. I’m like, No, it’s not time. Go ahead. That’s how it used to be. It really used to be that way.”
Goodyear officials admitted they were disappointed in the performance of their tires, and not sure what happened to cause the premature wear. But for teams, and fans, it turned out to be a nice surprise.
“Well, I mean, again, everyone in this garage area, whether it’s the teams or NASCAR or Goodyear, are so good at what they do that it’s rare you have surprises anymore,” Gabehart said. “Everything is so typically well thought out and calculated.
“This weekend for whatever reason we just missed. We’ve seen this before. We’ve seen cold Martinsville races not rubber up. Dover last year in practice, concrete track, didn’t rubber up. Yesterday all of a sudden didn’t rubber up. There was a small change with the traction compound that got laid on the bottom. Whether that contributed or not, who knows.
“My guess is we will bring something different back. I really think we have to learn from this. I mean, you’ve been hearing the drivers, and the teams ask for challenges effectively. It was a challenge today.”
Gabehart certainly wasn’t going to place any sort of blame on the tire manufacturer.
“Me personally, hats off to Goodyear,” he said. “I mean, I don’t want them to get any heat for this. I think Goodyear makes million-mile tires on the road. I don’t think they should make million-mile tires on the racetrack. I want them to have to make these drivers make decisions, crew chiefs make decisions. If they blow out, that’s on the crew chief, on the team. I think that should be part of our sport to a certain degree. Force the world’s best to make decisions. I think you saw a lot of that today.”
The positive opinions didn’t just come from the winning team.
“It was an interesting day,” third place finisher Brad Keselowski said. “There was a lot of discipline required and it was a fun race, to be honest, because you just had to be so smart behind the wheel. It would bite you in a heartbeat and you had to have a good setup. I think we had a good setup and tried to run the smartest race I could.”
Keselowski added that he would like to see more races like we saw at Bristol Sunday.
“I thought it was fun,” he said. “It’s different. Variety is the spice of life.”
Most fans will agree with the teams, and drivers, Sunday’s race was indeed fun.
“It was like racing at a really old, worn-out short track,” Chase Elliott said. “It was a lot of fun. I think there was probably a little better balance somewhere up there, but I had a good time.”
So it seems everyone involved indeed had a good time at Bristol.
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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