Five races remain on the 2026 NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour schedule. That’s five chances for points leader Patrick Emerling to pad his advantage and earn his first title … or five chances for defending champion Austin Beers to erase said advantage and climb back to the top.
Or, in the focus of some, that’s five chances for NASCAR, Modified Tour teams and American Racer to continue to work together to address the season’s moving target that has been the tires on which NASCAR’s oldest division races.
As anticipated, NASCAR and American Racer are still modifying (pun intended) the tires, new for the Modified Tour in 2026, in an effort to achieve the best possible competition. Since the start of the season, NASCAR and American Racer have worked to address teams’ concerns regarding tire-size consistency. Following extensive development and testing at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and Stafford Speedway, the next steps are settled.
The name of the game moving forward: grip.
RELATED: See the remaining Modified Tour schedule
“American Racer’s done a good job with the sizing; they’re a lot better as far as that goes,” said Stephen Kopcik, a two-time Modified Tour race winner this season who was the lone driver to participate in the Stafford tire test. “(The tires) just don’t have quite the grip from the start. So there’s not much fall-off because they’re not really that fast from the beginning. You can work your ass off to get to a car and be a little quicker than him, but then it’s line sensitive and tough to pass.”
Beers in a separate interview agreed: “It’s hard to go out of the specific line and find grip and make passes. I think our (racing) product is definitely getting a little better, but it’s still not good enough.”
That’s why and how NASCAR and American Racer have altered their focus. Modified Tour series director Gary Putnam put it plainly: Better grip leads to faster cars early in runs, more tire fall-off and, in theory, better racing.
“It’s in a better spot today,” Putnam said. “We’ve been working closely with American Racer to provide a better combination tire-wise.”
Added Beers, who tested tires at New Hampshire in late June: “Myself, (Jon) McKennedy and (Tyler) Rypkema were all in agreement that this was the best we felt with those tires. We actually were wearing the right fronts — which really hasn’t happened all year — which was good. We felt like we had good stability. I felt there was a lot more grip with the tires, and they lasted long. I had my drivability and maneuverability around the race track, but they still had a little bit of fall-off, so we’d be able to put on a good race.
“It was a very good test in my opinion.”
The process NASCAR and American Racer went through to pin an ideal tire combination was as follows:
NASCAR arrived at the New Hampshire test wondering whether its then-current tire would work for the Aug. 22 race at the same track. It did not. (“We saw some blistering,” Putnam said.) So they tested an option tire, a harder option, and agreed that compound would work well for the New Hampshire race. American Racer also modified the right-side tires so they’d accept more heat and account for the higher temperatures expected in August.
To address the post-New Hampshire tire package, though, NASCAR kept testing. They along with Kopcik’s team conducted the second tire test, this time at Stafford, in an effort to check what they’d discovered at New Hampshire. They started again with the control set. They then tested the New Hampshire option (harder lefts and rights) and received the same results. They then tried the control lefts with the New Hampshire rights.
That — the original, softer left sides (control set) combined with the harder New Hampshire rights — turned out to be an ideal combination for the final four races of the season: Stafford (Aug. 28), Oswego Speedway (Sept. 5), Riverhead Raceway (Sept. 19) and Thompson Speedway (Oct. 11).
“All that was really good,” Putnam said. “In fact, we saw a higher grip level then where our baseline tire is. So starting at Stafford, we will run the right side tire that we’re running at Loudon through the remainder of the year.”
Added Kopcik: “I’ll give it to them; American Racer’s been doing the best they can. They’ve been good at developing and wanting to make it better. I do think it’s going to be better. … The tire we tested on at Stafford a few weeks ago is a major step in the correct direction.”
To proactively address any concerns teams may have about tire sizing or possible blistering from heat, the Modified Tour plans to allow teams opportunities to scuff their qualifying sets for the remainder of the season.
Putnam said roughly half the teams took that opportunity before the Thompson race on Aug. 5, not including Beers, the eventual pole winner. He expects fewer teams to scuff moving forward, but the option remains.
American Racer plans to continue tire development and testing throughout the end of the year in preparation for the 2027 season. In the meantime, NASCAR will work closely with American Racer to optimize the current tire for the final five-race stretch run, which includes some of the season’s biggest events.