Bristol Night Race could be a tire conservation race … or not

Based on the current temperature forecast for Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway, it is likely unreasonable to expect a repeat of the wildly unpredictable and memorable 2024 spring race.

However, that doesn’t mean that Goodyear does not expect directional progress towards continued increased right side tire wear in the Bristol Night Race.

Goodyear’s NASCAR project manager Mark Keto feels pretty confident that the extreme tire cording in the spring 2024 race was the result of cold weather, the use of a resin instead of PJ1 Trackbite and a lack of data due to dirt races the previous two seasons.

That race, which was contested with temperatures in the 50s and 60s, produced a non-superspeedway record 54 lead changes and 3,589 passes under green due to right sides that unraveled around 40 laps into a run.

Then, this spring, a cold Saturday produced the same cording from the year before but a much warmer Sunday afternoon race created a more traditional racing product all on PJ1 Trackbite.

“But we did see a decent amount of tire wear,” Keto told Motorsport.com on Tuesday afternoon. “The right sides were down to the cords in 120 to 150 laps but drivers want us to get that number closer to 70 laps.”

Up to the challenge, Goodyear has come back with a softer right-side compound, and one that was not tested due to the MLB Speedway Classic held at the facility over the summer, which could actually create a challenge for teams to overcome.

When the race starts, the temperature could be as high as the high 70s, enough for the track to take rubber so Keto says Goodyear tried to compensate for that.

“It’s softer but not in the sense that we’re trying to add more grip,” Keto said. “It’s softer in that we’re trying to get more tread wear when we know the track takes rubber and is rubbered in and that’s where fall off gets reduced. So, we’re trying to create more tread wear once the track takes rubber.”

Moving forward, Keto says Goodyear has conceived a tire that doesn’t lay rubber into the porous racing surface on warmer days, even though that is against conventional wisdom.

“We can do that,” Keto said. “We have a test scheduled for November 11 and 12 where we’re trying to take some temperature dependency out at Bristol. The thing is that on the concrete tracks, you typically want it to take rubber so it forces drivers to move around and find speed where the track is still green.”

But Keto also recognized that NASCAR and competitors alike generally appreciated the challenges associated with the 2024 spring race where tire management was entirely determined behind the steering wheel.

“NASCAR liked what they saw,” Keto said.

Denny Hamlin generated headlines on Monday and Tuesday when he referenced a friction test conducted on this tire that suggested extreme tire wear for this weekend.

“They have this machine, apparently, that is like sandpaper,” Hamlin said. “So, they slide this tire — anyway, there’s a tire that goes on this sand belt machine and checks the wear, how is this tire going to wear under certain loads? And apparently, they put on the Bristol right side tire, and it shredded into the machine immediately.

“Like, it was so aggressive that it destroyed the machine. Like it just unraveled and got caught in the machine.”

Keto said this was the force and motion machine but that it isn’t entirely indicative of track factors and ‘not necessarily’ an indicator of future performance when factoring weather, PJ1 and the track taking rubber.

All told, 2020 Cup Series champion Chase Elliott says he is expecting a normal Bristol race and doesn’t expect Hendrick Motorsports to unload with anything drastically different.

“I think you have to prepare for a normal Bristol,” Elliott said over the weekend at World Wide Technology Raceway. “If you put your cards all in for a tire conservation race, you would be giving up so much if the race goes like it probably will based on the last four years or whatever it is.

“So, I think you have to plan for that, and if the track doesn’t take rubber, then you adjust one the fly like we did last spring.”

Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the Hendrick Motorsports No. 24, says he expects this right side to last around 100 laps instead of 200 or 40.

“The hardest thing this weekend will be deciding the cambers we run and what kind of decisions we’ll have to make to make the tires live if we think that will be a problem,” Fugle said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Monday. “And that’s because if the track rubbers in and it’s not a problem, you’re going to regret not getting all the potential out of your right side tires.”

Ross Chastain, another playoff driver hoping to stave off elimination on Saturday, is hoping for Friday practice to relate to the Saturday race.

“I don’t think they want tire drama like we had a couple years ago,” Chastain said. “At the end of the day, it all has to go through the tire to get to the track. I trust the folks at Goodyear to do what they do best. This is their wheelhouse, pun intended. I trust them to bring a good tire that’s going to work for me and be reliable, and also pay a penalty if I abuse it and it’s going to slow down later in the run. Whatever it is, we will learn from it. That’s why we have practice.”