Sunday’s Food City 500 was chaotic right from the very beginning. The cars burned their tires out so rapidly that NASCAR had to issue each team an extra set of Goodyear tires, which gave them a total of 11 sets, including the ones they had used during Saturday’s qualifying. The teams were surely expecting some tire wear after the qualifying and the practice laps, but none of them had foreseen such unruliness.
Advertisement
NASCAR has previously used the same Goodyear tires at Bristol, and they never witnessed anything like this. Then why now? According to Hendrick Motorsports’ Vice President of Competition, Chad Knaus, it’s not just the rubber on the tires alone that were responsible for the turn-in events. He explained that a lot of factors worked together in wearing off the tires as rapidly as they did.
“It’s overcast all day, the track was cool, the track treatment is a different substance than what we’ve used in the past and what this tire has been built for and designed for since we’ve been here,” he said. “It’s been a different traction compound. So when you throw that into the mix…you can have results like this occasionally. “
So will it be the same every time NASCAR hosts a race at Bristol and there are clouds all over he Tennessean sky? “I’m sure they (NASCAR) will go back, take a look at it, make some proper decisions when we come back in the fall,” Knaus added.
Another milestone achievement for Hendrick Motorsports
Sunday’s race at the 0.533-mile track witnessed yet another milestone achievement for the winningest team of NASCAR. Thanks to Chase Elliott, Hendrick Motorsports led 80,000 laps in NASCAR’s premier series. The golden moment arrived on lap 62 of the race, and as of now, the team has led 80,024 laps in NASCAR’s top-tier racing series.
Needless to say, the team has come a long way since Geoff Bodine led the first-ever lap when he won at Martinsville back in 1984. What’s more impressive is that the team picked not one, but two significant achievements this year, the other one being the team’s 100th stage win, which came by the hands of Kyle Larson en route to his win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
The fact that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the team makes it more auspicious. Last year, the team also recorded their 300th Cup Series win when William Byron emerged victorious at the playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway.
