On a day when Denny Hamlin proved why he’s a favorite for the Championship 4 on Sunday, others faltered. AJ Allmendinger, in particular, seemed to struggle as the practice session turned into a wreck-strewn scramble. The most exciting race of the campaign may be for those top four drivers, but as far as he’s concerned, he just wants the season to end.
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What was supposed to be a straightforward tune-up ahead of Sunday’s finale quickly spiraled into mayhem. The hour-long session saw four red flags and at least six drivers suffer tire blowouts, derailing teams’ plans for long-run simulations. Hamlin briefly slowed to avoid congestion, but disaster struck just behind him.
Briscoe, his teammate and championship rival, suffered a cut left-rear tire down the backstretch, sparks flying as the underside of his car dragged along the pavement. He limped to pit road, only to report a heavy vibration minutes later and return to the garage.
Allmendinger’s run ended even more dramatically. Five minutes into practice, the veteran was forced into the wall after his left-front tire exploded entering Turn 3. The impact brought out the third red flag of the session. Allmendinger later explained that he had already experienced a left-rear failure earlier in his run.
He told the reporters afterwards, “I’m ready for this year to be over… Blew a left front, but I don’t know. The first run, we blew a left rear like three laps into it. Everything felt fine there. I was already tight. But the balance was okay, and I just wanted to run the laps out and put a 25-30 lap run to see what we had.”
“Yeah, it just all of a sudden blew out of nowhere. So, I don’t know if it’s we’re too low on tire pressure. We usually on our group in practice, we’re not overly low in tire pressure, but to have two left side tires blow out, we got to figure out why,” the Kaulig Racing driver added.
“I’m ready for this year to be over”
AJ Allmendinger checked and released after blowing a tire in practice.
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Unaware that multiple teams were battling the same gremlin, Allmendinger admitted it was too soon to tell whether the problem would plague the entire weekend. As his battered car was hauled off, another issue emerged, this time for Christopher Bell, who slowed his JGR Toyota with a cut left-rear tire just as the track returned to green.
Minutes later, Daniel Suarez fell victim to the same fate. He managed to nurse his car back to the pits, but the growing list of punctures raised alarm across the garage.
Near the end of practice, Suarez suffered another left-rear failure, though NASCAR kept the session under green as he crawled to pit road. Chase Elliott, sensing something off in his car, also shut it down early out of caution, heading straight to the garage to avoid a repeat scenario. The final red flag flew when Kyle Busch shredded a left-rear tire of his own, the No. 8 brushing the wall before rolling to a stop.
By the time the checkered flag waved, the day had been less about pace and more about survival. While Hamlin looked sharp and composed, the rest of the field was left scratching their heads over the mounting tire troubles that turned practice into a war of attrition.
With the biggest race of the year just around the corner, Friday’s chaos left teams scrambling for answers, and Goodyear facing questions before the green flag even drops at Phoenix.
