CONCORD, N.C. — Goodyear officials were in NASCAR’s Charlotte-area backyard for tire testing Tuesday, giving Cup Series and Xfinity Series teams a go at gathering tire data and dialing in their set-ups for intermediate-sized tracks. While a recent push toward softer tire compounds with more short-term grip and advanced wear and fall-off has been a trend on smaller ovals, Tuesday’s track time at Charlotte Motor Speedway was more about finding a happy medium.
Tuesday marked the second Goodyear tire test for the Cup Series in just more than a week, with three teams participating in a one-day test on March 10 at Phoenix Raceway. That session was intended to find a softer-tire foundation for similar tracks of 1 mile or shorter in length; Goodyear officials indicated that Tuesday’s test at the 1.5-mile Charlotte track was designed to determine a baseline for other intermediate-sized ovals on the Cup Series calendar.
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The Cup Series and Xfinity Series are fresh off their most recent events on a similar 1.5-mile track type, racing last weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Based on what Daytona 500 champ William Byron sees in Goodyear’s offerings for intermediate circuits, wholesale changes are unnecessary.
“I feel like the tire on the intermediate actually falls off pretty good,” said Hendrick Motorsports’ Byron, who joined Team Penske’s Ryan Blaney and Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe among Cup Series drivers testing Tuesday. “Sure, it could fall off more, but we’re kind of at the limit of blowing tires or cording tires, and I think, honestly, the tires at Vegas were going down to the cords if your balance was off, and some guys blew tires as we ran laps. So I feel like the intermediate racing has been really good, and honestly, I don’t think we need to touch it. Honestly, I think it’s really just a weather thing trying to get hotter races where it’s slicker, but you know, there’s plenty of cautions on intermediates right now, and it seems like there’s plenty of racing going on, so I think the tire’s in a good spot.”
Blaney echoed Byron’s sentiment, saying he hopes for more scenarios where throttle lift is necessary for navigating intermediate-track turns. The move toward softer tires is a delicate balance to strike, especially at ovals where drivers carry such high speeds through the corners.
“It puts Goodyear in a tough spot, and I try to put myself in Goodyear’s shoes, and I don’t want their job because they have a really tough job of manufacturing these tires that we all are saying that we want,” Blaney said after Tuesday’s session drew to a close. “I don’t know how to make these things. Like, it’s easy to say, yeah, go softer, go softer, go softer. Well, you go softer, and now you have a risk of people failing tires, and you wreck. So it’s like, what is that fine line of a tire that does wear but doesn’t blow out … and you don’t really get a lot of shots at it, right? You have some tires here, and then you show up at the race weekend with them. So it’s a tough job, but really, I just look for off-throttle time. How do you get the tire to be slick enough where you have to bail out of the gas and have to creep back to it?
“I think that’s just what we need on the mile-and-a-halfs, and they’re getting there. I mean, they’ve made huge improvements the last few years, and I applaud them for that, so hopefully, we can continue to keep going with them.”
With no drastic changes coming from Goodyear’s side, some of Tuesday’s on-track time allowed teams to focus on their own intermediate-track programs ahead of Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway (3 p.m. ET, FS1, MRN, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). Byron welcomed the chance for his No. 24 team to make incremental gains, and Blaney said he appreciated being able to turn extra laps and build data with a “control” tire — a treasured rarity these days with test sessions at a scarce premium.
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For Briscoe, the session provided another day for extra orientation with his new Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 team and crew chief James Small.
“Yeah, it’s a tire test, but I’m almost just more trying to get more and more acclimated with the JGR cars and just how different they drive,” said Briscoe, who joined Coach Joe Gibbs’ organization in the offseason after four years with Stewart-Haas Racing. “You know, I’ve had to change my driving style a ton over the course of the last two or three weeks, just trying to better suit how their cars are set up. So, for me, that was a big focus today. It was nice coming off of another mile-and-a-half just two days ago.”
The same three Cup Series teams are scheduled for another full day of Goodyear tire testing Wednesday, with the Charlotte track open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET. For the three Xfinity Series teams — Haas Factory Team with driver Sheldon Creed, JGR (Aric Almirola) and Richard Childress Racing (Austin Hill) — Tuesday marked their lone day of testing.
Tuesday’s session was not divided up by series, which meant that Cup and Xfinity cars shared an open track simultaneously. That created interesting occurrences, with Briscoe’s No. 19 Cup Series Toyota Camry making the rounds at the same time as another No. 19 — Almirola’s Xfinity Toyota Supra. It also highlighted the differences between the two vehicles on the same-style speedway.
“The Cup cars just have so much more grip than the Xfinity cars do,” said Hill, who ranks fourth in Xfinity Series points. “We have low downforce, low sideforce, so we can run some decent lap times for the first five laps, and then we fall off really hard, and it looked like the Cup cars didn’t really fall off much. So yeah, there were a few times they got to me, they blew my doors off, and when they got by me, and I got behind them, it was the weirdest thing because their cars, just the way the diffuser works and everything, the buffer that they have, that those cars have, it was causing my car to do some weird stuff, like even down the straightaway. It was kind of buffering the car around, so that was kind of interesting — something that I’ve never felt before with having a Cup car out there versus an Xfinity car. But all in all, I mean, the biggest thing, those Cup cars just have so much more grip in the corner, and we’re about the same speed down the straightaway. They just can get through the corner way faster than us.”