A familiar Goodyear tire combination will return to the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series this weekend at Kansas Speedway.
New right-side rubber featuring a tire-construction update debuted in both series for last September’s events at the 1.5-mile Kansas City oval. That same setup will be back in place for the Cup Series’ AdventHealth 400 on Sunday (2 p.m. ET, FOX, HBO Max, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) and the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series’ Kansas Lottery 300 on Saturday (7 p.m. ET, The CW, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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“We introduced new right-side Goodyear Racing Eagle tires last fall, which help give teams different strategy options as the race unfolds,” Goodyear NASCAR product manager Rick Heinrich said. “This will already be the third time Cup Series teams have run this setup in 2026, so they come to Kansas with valuable data under their belts.”
This same Goodyear configuration also ran in the Cup Series this year on intermediate-style tracks at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Darlington Raceway. O’Reilly Series teams used this tire setup on the 1.5-mile Vegas oval.
Cup Series teams will have 10 total sets for the weekend — eight new sets for Sunday’s 400-miler, one for practice and another for qualifying that will transfer to the race. O’Reilly teams will work with an allotment of six sets of tires — four new for Saturday’s 300-mile event, one practice and one for qualifying that carries over.
Todd Gilliland, fresh from a sixth-place finish Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway, said he expects teams to be aggressive with tire pressures with a forecast for chilly temperatures in the series’ first of two Kansas visits this year.
“I think all the work Goodyear’s been doing has been super-helpful,” Gilliland said. “Over even the last four years now, it’s just been a continual progression of all that stuff. I mean, we put them in a really, really tough spot at these mile-and-a-halfs, going as low as possible on air, and probably even a half-pound lower at times, just because you have to get every ounce of speed you can out of the car and the tires. That puts them in a tough box. … It’s going to be cooler this weekend, speeds are going to be up. I don’t think we had a ton of tire issues on the right sides (last year), so I’m sure the teams will keep pushing it. The more the tires have been wearing out, the more it seems like at these places, it just becomes easier to pass. A place like Kansas is very wide, so it makes the racing more fun.”