The upcoming race at the Richmond Raceway will be a crucial one for defending Cup Series champion Ryan Blaney. Although he has secured his playoff spot with the victories that came at Iowa and Pocono, he is still lacking in the category of playoff points. As he prepares to take on the 0.75-mile short track for the second time this year, his tire changer Ryan Flores has pitched in on pitlane expectations.
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Flores recently said on NASCAR.com’s Around The Track segment that the pit road action will be hot and heavy on Sunday. This is because the promotion is opening up the availability of tire choices for teams. There will be two different compounds to choose from. Prime tires will be the traditional option that sacrifices speed for durability. Option tires will be softer alternatives that maximize grip.
Teams will have seven sets of prime tires and two sets of option tires. This limit is what is expected to enhance the need for proper tire management strategies. Flore added, “It’s gonna create a lot of opportunities for guys like Bubba Wallace and Ross Chastain that have to get stage points. But then guys that kind of can throw home areas and go for the race win, they’re gonna maybe save their tires.”
Prime tires can be identified with the yellow lettering on their side while the option tires will have red lettering. For drivers, it will be imperative to know when to push the limits of wear. The same strategies that were used in North Wilkesboro – when tire options were experimented with for the first time – might not come in handy at Richmond due to the differences in surface nature.
Ryan Blaney hopes that tire options will sort out short-track issues
Talking to NASCAR about the differences that will be experienced between the North Wilkesboro All-Star race and Sunday, Blaney noted a key difference. The North Wilkesboro surface has just been freshly re-paved before the race. This caused the option tires to not be at their very best. The defending champion expects them to be better at Richmond’s asphalt cover.
He said, “It has to be two sides of the scale. It has to be half a second faster like the option tire has to be a half-second faster for like 10 laps and then fall off a second after that. So it has to be two ways and hopefully Richmond helps that out.” The experiment with tires comes after multiple other efforts to better the short-track racing product. Blaney only hopes like the rest of the fandom that the solution sticks this time.
