LOUDON, N.H. — Tuesday’s Goodyear tire test at New Hampshire Motor Speedway featured a trio of Championship 4 hopefuls in Christopher Bell, Ross Chastain and defending NASCAR Cup Series champion Joey Logano representing Toyota, Chevrolet and Ford, respectively. The session at its core was a full day (with more testing on Wednesday) of logging data and giving feedback, with implications that may not be felt initially, but could come to fruition in just under two months.
Each already locked into this year’s NASCAR Playoffs but at different points in their championship quests, the three participants got an early leg up at a postseason puzzle they’ll be trying to decode as NHMS re-enters the equation as a track along the championship path in the Round of 12, deeper into the playoffs than it had historically been. This season will be the first the “Magic Mile” has been in the playoffs since 2017.
Bell, last year’s race winner at Loudon, wasn’t shy about how much that helps his search for title No. 1.
“With it being later on in the year, it just makes it that much more important,” he said. “If you win this, you could put yourself into the Round of 8. And certainly, it’s a track that we’re capable of winning at.”
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While specifics on compound selection for the test remained under wraps — Bell noted “12 or 13 different sets of tires” — drivers got a preview of the significant swings a tire choice could make at the “Magic Mile.” Goodyear experimented Tuesday with multiple tire combinations, some different from what teams had seen before, with an increase in tire wear specifically in mind.
“We’ve made great strides in advancing the short track tire the past couple years, and the New Hampshire test is another opportunity to continue that work,” said Mark Keto, Goodyear Senior Project Manager for NASCAR. “Our intention is to come back here and race on Goodyear Racing Eagle tires with a softer compound designed to create more tire wear and falloff.”
The three-time champion Logano indicated after a full day of testing that Goodyear has found the falloff.
“This is Goodyear’s test, right?” Logano said. “We started with what we had finished (with) last year, kind of going to what the tire has been this year at other short tracks. And then some other just off-the-wall stuff that they’ve come up with, which is pretty interesting. There’s no doubt they’ve created falloff. They know how to do that.”
In addition to helping Goodyear with data collection, it’s possible Tuesday’s laid-back, technically focused session could also kick-start a championship defense for Logano — currently outside the top 10 in points. We’ve seen this before, however, and the No. 22 Team Penske group faced similar questions heading into the playoffs last year … before smoking everybody in the back half of them for a third title in six years.
“I feel confident in my race team, obviously. You know, this year has been pretty rough to start off. There’s no doubt about that,” said Logano, who just made start No. 600. “But we’ve been here before many, many times, and playoffs come around, and things just start to click. But we can’t just rest on that and assume that’s gonna happen right now; that’s never happened by accident ever before. So we have to continue working toward that, so we can try to make a great run like that again.”
His fellow championship contender Bell echoed Logano’s thoughts on the dramatic swings Goodyear took, and was quite pleased to see New Hampshire saddle its way into the meat of the playoffs, when he’ll likely be battling the New England native.
“It is crazy the difference that tires can make,” the No. 20 JGR driver said. “Like, we went through a couple tires that were seconds different on the trial. … I was definitely a big fan of the playoff schedule changes, minus Talladega being Round of 8, but Gateway being tossed in and Loudon being tossed in were really good additions for our team. Hopefully, we get to that opportunity in the Round of 12, where this is an important race for us. So, looking at the test schedule, we knew that this was one that we wanted to come to, and thankfully, we got it ironed out to where we’re here, and just trying to keep up with Joey today.”
Both Logano and Bell have a long history of success at the Granite State venue, but Chastain, apart from a handful of decent-enough recent runs, hasn’t yet found the rhythm necessary to propel himself to holding a lobster at the end of any Loudon afternoon.
For Chastain, Tuesday’s session jumped out as an opportunity at a place that hasn’t always clicked for him, but of which he’s grown fond.
“I like the track. I like it since I’ve got with my current crew chief (Phil Surgen),” he said. “He definitely changed the game for me and made it a lot better-feeling track because the race cars are so good. I just didn’t have that feeling I was confident before.”
It’s easy to see how Bell and Logano would be thrilled to see one of their best tracks come at such a crucial point in the season, but was Chastain not as enthusiastic to see the schedule shakeup?
“No. (I’m not concerned) at all. Like, line ’em up. I don’t care,” he said. “I can’t try any harder with the playoff race versus the first race of the year or the middle of the summer. I don’t have that ability to kind of turn it off and on. I have to show up every week and try. And I might get lucky.”
That said, Bell’s win last year, overall track record and any insights gained from this week could make him the favorite here until proven otherwise. If Bell gets through the opening round cleanly, New Hampshire could be the place where he locks into the Round of 8, and what’s waiting for him on the other side of that is another date with the Championship 4 — at Phoenix Raceway, the track most similar to NHMS and where he won earlier this year amid a blazing, three-race streak.
“It’s statistically, I think, my best track on the schedule,” Bell said of New Hampshire. “And with it being later on in the year, putting it in the playoffs is really, I mean, it’s good for me. So I’m all for it. Let’s crown a champion here.”