Amid all the chaos at Richmond Raceway, it slipped a lot of people’s minds that NASCAR did something new with the tires and it seemed to have worked. Teams had a choice of the yellow-marked harder compound ‘prime’ tires and the red-marked softer compound ‘option’ tires. There was a lot of doubt and optimism going into the weekend with regards to the same. However, things seem to have worked well enough.
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Daniel Suarez was one of the drivers who expressed excitement about the experiment. He finished P10 in the event and said that it was a lot of fun to race. Two tire compounds meant strategy would come into the picture big time and that’s exactly what happened. Speaking to the media after the race, the Trackhouse Racing driver hailed Goodyear and NASCAR’s innovation.
“These option tires, if NASCAR and the fans didn’t like it, I don’t know what they would like because they were amazing. The strategy played a huge role in what everyone was doing; what we were doing and everyone’s different agenda. It was fun.,” he said.
NASCAR first tested these tires out at the All-Star race earlier this year. The Next Gen car has had a lot of issues in short-track races and this was one of the steps to fix that problem. Now with all the data, it will be interesting to see how Goodyear further develops tires for future short-track races.
NASCAR executive satisfied with tire experiment
NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, Elton Sawyer, was also a happy man after the race. Speaking to the media, Sawyer explained why he thought the experiment was a success and praised Goodyear for doing a fantastic job.
“What we learned at the All-Star race, this gave us an opportunity here at Richmond to put them in real competition where we are paying points and paying money and we knew our teams would be at their best in strategy and the way it unfolded early with the #99 and the #34 putting them on, it really showed us what that tire can do,” he said. Suarez was one of the first drivers to benefit from them as he put on the tires early in the race.
There is still a long way to go before NASCAR fully fixes the Next Gen’s short-track problems. But this step is something they can be proud of. There are still a few short-track races left this season and it will be interesting to see how those pan out after Richmond.
