NASCAR News: Goodyear Option tire to be available at Richmond

NASCAR officials announced Tuesday that this summer’s Cup Series event at Richmond Raceway will have two Goodyear tire choices available to teams.

The procedural change for the Aug. 11 Cook Out 400 at the Virginia short track comes after an audition during last month’s NASCAR All-Star Race, a non-points event held at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway. This application will be the first in a points-paying race.

“The All-Star Race is a great event obviously by itself, but it gives us the opportunity to learn,” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, told NASCAR.com. “This past year, it gave us the chance to try something with tires, and we’re working really hard in NASCAR as well as the folks at the R&D Center to improve the short-track package. So the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro gave us the opportunity to introduce the option tire, something we’d never done to my knowledge in the history of our sport, to have different compounds during an event.

“As that event unfolded, throughout the weekend, we were still optimistic that we would see something there that would really move the needle on our short-track package. We didn’t get the results at Wilkesboro that we were hoping for, with a very similar opportunity that we had at Bristol where we did see results, and even at Iowa where we did as well. Any time we can put our teams in a position where they have to manage tires, we really see some great racing and we see an entertaining race, so that’s our goal going into Richmond.”

Teams will use two types of Goodyear rubber in Richmond’s 400-lapper — a softer “option” tire with the reward of more short-term grip balanced against the risk of less long-term durability, and a baseline “prime” tire that provides a more lasting ride with potentially less grip in its harder compound.

As at the All-Star Race, option tires will have red sidewall lettering, and prime tires will carry the traditional yellow labeling. White-lettered wet-weather tires — used on road courses and the circuit’s shorter ovals — will also be available for racing under damp conditions.

Competition officials indicated teams will be allotted six sets of prime tires and two sets of option tires for the race at the 0.75-mile track, including one prime set carried over from qualifying. Teams will also have an extended practice session, with one set of each tire type available to use during that 45-minute stint. The availability of just two sets of option tires over the course of 400 laps is expected to place a premium on the strategy element, for when teams might opt to deploy them.

“Once we get through practice, that 45-minute session, we’ll have the ability to work with Goodyear as well as our teams to see the longevity of the option tire, what’s it look like, as well as the prime tire,” Sawyer said. “So we’ll have the ability to make some adjustments once practice is over, but as we go into the weekend, we’ll start with the allotment that was recently decided on by working with Goodyear and ourselves and prior history there.”

Teams will not be able to mix the two tire types — for example, left-side prime tires and right-side options would not be allowed — but unlike the All-Star Race, Cup Series teams may start the race on the tire of their choosing. Teams must qualify on prime tires, but will be free to select either compound at all other times.

Stu Grant, general manager for Goodyear Global Race Tires division, had hinted last month that an additional race for the tire-choice format was possible and that data from a tire test at Iowa Speedway on May 28 would help inform that decision.

“This whole option tire thing is pretty exciting strategy stuff for us and for the sport,” Grant said before last month’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “You saw option tires in other forms of racing, you’ve really never embraced it in NASCAR, never really had a whole lot of dialogue about it until recently. You say, all right, we need to try to make the short-track racing a little bit better and then the option tire became more of a discussion with the crew chiefs, the drivers and with NASCAR. The whole North Wilkesboro thing came together pretty quickly and we said, hey, let’s give it a try. So we’ve got that data point — that’s nice. We’ve got that data point, and now we just go forward.”

Sawyer indicated competition officials have had an open dialogue with Goodyear since the All-Star Race, and have held individual meetings with drivers, crew chiefs and team officials to further the discussion about tires. Officials had noted that the two types of tires were made on an accelerated timeline for the All-Star Race, but Sawyer said that production of the Richmond tires — which are the same constructions and compounds — has been eased by a longer lead time.

“The extra runway has given us some latitude to be able to hopefully make really good decisions as we go into Richmond,” Sawyer says. “Again, once Richmond is over, we’ll have another data point, and we’ll see what next steps are from there.”

As for what the next steps might be after Richmond, the next short-track opportunity for a tire-option race wouldn’t arrive until the Cup Series Playoffs — which has 0.533-mile Bristol Motor Speedway (Sept. 21), 0.526-mile Martinsville Speedway (Nov. 3) and the 1-mile Phoenix Raceway (Nov. 10) on the schedule. Those first two are elimination races where the title-eligible field will be trimmed, and the Phoenix season finale will determine the series champion.

Competition officials are sometimes reluctant to make significant shifts in rules or race procedures during the postseason, and Sawyer admitted any thoughts of implementing tire options in that 10-race stretch would be premature.

“If you look at Richmond not being in the playoffs, it gives us an opportunity to at least try it,” Sawyer said. “I think, as we’ve always laid out, you never say never, and in this situation, I wouldn’t say we wouldn’t introduce the option tire in the playoffs; it would have to be a much deeper discussion after Richmond to see if that’s something that, again, the industry, teams, our broadcast partners, ourselves all are aligned that that’s the right thing to do going forward. But it’s really too early to tell if that would be an option until we get through Richmond.”