Goodyear will bring a semi-familiar tire setup for the upcoming race weekend in the Lone Star State — familiar to the NASCAR Cup Series, but new to Texas Motor Speedway.
The Fort Worth-area track will host all three national series this weekend, with the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series joining the tripleheader. Those events lead up to the Cup Series’ Würth 400 presented by Liqui Moly on Sunday (3:30 p.m. ET, FS1, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
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Sunday’s Cup Series race will be the third this year on a true 1.5-mile oval, not counting the same-sized but superspeedway-style layout at EchoPark Speedway. This same tire setup was used earlier this season at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Kansas Speedway and the 1.366-mile Darlington Raceway. The left-side tire has been in Goodyear’s rotation since last year’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, where it debuted with an updated compound. The right-side rubber made its first Cup appearance last September at Kansas.
“The Goodyear Racing Eagle tire setup we have selected for Texas Motor Speedway represents the next step in the consolidation of our intermediate track tire package,” said Justin Fantozzi, Goodyear Director of Racing for the Americas. “Teams are already familiar with the combination, having run it three times this year, and we are happy with its performance at similar 1.5-mile tracks.”
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The O’Reilly Auto Parts Series also competed with this tire configuration at Las Vegas and Kansas earlier this season. The Craftsman Truck Series’ setup is also a familiar one, but it makes its first appearance of the year at the season’s first intermediate-sized track for the tailgate tour.
The tire allotments for each team competing this week:
- Cup Series: 10 total sets — 8 new sets for the race, 1 for practice and 1 from qualifying that transfers to the race.
- O’Reilly Auto Parts Series: 6 total sets — 4 new sets for the race, 1 for practice and 1 from qualifying that transfers to the race.
- Craftsman Truck Series: 5 total sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for practice and 1 from qualifying that transfers to the race.