Goodyear will bring its proven road-course tire setup to Sonoma Raceway this weekend as the NASCAR Cup Series and NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series continue their West Coast road-racing swing.
The Goodyear Racing Eagle tire packages for this weekend’s events at Sonoma are identical to those used last weekend at San Diego’s Naval Base Coronado. But the 1.99-mile, 12-turn Northern California road course presents a much different challenge with its elevation changes and flowing permanent-course layout.
RELATED: Sonoma weekend schedule
The Cup Series tire package was introduced at the start of last season and has already been used this year at Circuit of The Americas, Watkins Glen International and San Diego. The current 15-inch road-course tire for the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series was introduced at Sonoma last year and has been used at every road-course event since.
Unlike Goodyear’s oval-track tire packages, the same tire specification is used on both sides of the car. Teams in both series will also have wet-weather tires available if needed.
“The Goodyear Racing Eagle tire setups for this weekend are very familiar to teams, especially after running them last weekend in San Diego,” said Rick Heinrich, Goodyear NASCAR product manager. “While Sonoma is very different from San Diego, with significant elevation changes and a more traditional permanent road course layout, these tire setups have consistently performed on road courses, so we expect the same this weekend.”
Tire allotments for each team competing this weekend:
- Cup Series: 7 dry-weather sets — 5 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying that transfers to the race and 1 for practice. Teams will also have 6 wet-weather sets available.
- O’Reilly Auto Parts Series: 5 dry-weather sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying that transfers to the race and 1 for practice. Teams will also have 4 wet-weather sets available.