NASCAR Sprint Cup Series teams will compete in two of the final three races with a Goodyear tire combination that has already been used twice this season, in the spring race at Texas Motor Speedway and the opening Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup event at Chicagoland Speedway.
Beneficial yes, but will the results from those two races be repeatable for those that ran well in the two previous events?
The series returns to Texas this weekend for the AAA Texas 500 (Sunday, 2 p.m. ET, NBC, PRN, SiriusXM) and will conclude the 2015 season two weeks later at Homestead-Miami Speedway with the Ford EcoBoost 400 (Nov. 22, NBC, MRN, SiriusXM). Both are 1.5-mile tracks, as is Chicagoland.
"It's good because you can do the same things air-pressure wise; you know the lateral/vertical grip of the tire, what it will handle," Tony Gibson, crew chief for Chase participant Kurt Busch, said. "The difference is the actual material that's in the asphalt at the race tracks. They're a little bit different.
"Homestead is a little different because it's surface is older and because of the (variable) banking. So Homestead is kind of in a league of its own. And it sits in the sun down there all year; the asphalt is really abrasive. So it does chew that tire up more so than Chicago or Texas; all of them chew them up, but I'd say Homestead is probably the worst (of the three)."
Among drivers that are still in the Chase, Busch has the fourth-best average finish in the races at Texas and Chicagoland (8.5), and along with Stewart-Haas Racing teammate Kevin Harvick, led double-digit laps.
Even though the makeup of the tires is the same, differences in the tracks cause the tires to wear differently.
"Texas is different because of the wheel loads, more vertical in your speed," he said. "That tire responds a little bit different at Texas. That's why we've seen in the past some left side failures on tires on low air. To get the grip out of that tire at all three tracks, you need to be pretty low on air pressure. Unfortunately the loads are different at all three.
"You want to run low air to get maximum grip out of the tire. But the load at Texas is way high compared to Chicago and Homestead. All three have different characteristics."
Busch won the pole at Texas in the spring, and led 45 laps. He led 37 at Chicagoland.
"The car we're taking is the Darlington/Dover car," said Gibson, "that was extremely fast at both of those tracks. We're putting together really good cars for (Texas and Homestead), and being on the same tire, we know what this tire does."
Joey Logano had the best average finish among the drivers still competing in the Chase in the Texas/Chicagoland combo (5.0), followed by Carl Edwards (6.0) and Brad Keselowski (6.5).
New Surface for The Glen
Re-paving work at Watkins Glen International has been completed, according to track officials as one of only two road courses on the Sprint Cup Series schedule prepares for the '16 racing season.
Next up for the facility is the installation of concrete rumble strips, grading and grassing of off-surface areas, concrete work along pit road as well as various wiring projects.
WGI hosted its first NASCAR event in 1957.
RELATED: See how the repave got underway
Goodyear, Teams Return to AMS
Last week's Goodyear test at Atlanta Motor Speedway, postponed due to rain, got underway Tuesday at the 1.5-mile track with Jamie McMurray (Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates), Bobby Labonte (Richard Childress Racing), Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (Roush Fenway Racing) and David Ragan (Joe Gibbs Racing) taking part in the two-day test.
Labonte was filling in for Austin Dillon while Ragan was testing with the No. 19 team of Carl Edwards.
The test is scheduled to conclude on Wednesday.