Goodyear will supply NASCAR Cup Series teams with a new right-side tire for Sunday’s Brickyard 400 (2 p.m. ET, TNT Sports, truTV, HBO Max, IMS Radio Network, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), creating a new setup for the circuit’s annual visit to the historic Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval.
Cup Series teams will use the same left-side tire that previously was in play more recently at Chicagoland Speedway’s 400-miler July 5 and used at eight other intermediate-sized tracks earlier this season. The new tire combination was determined by Goodyear officials after a tire test at the Indianapolis track early last month, with Chevrolet’s Ross Chastain, Ford’s Ryan Preece and Toyota’s John Hunter Nemechek representing the series’ three automakers.
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The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, which shares the weekend bill at Indianapolis, will use the same tire configuration that it utilized last month at Pocono Raceway — another 2.5-mile track. Both the Cup Series and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series will have 50-minute practice sessions Friday afternoon.
“It’s always trying to get fall-off,” Blaney said. “The big talk is, if you abuse your stuff, are you going to pay a penalty for it, and that’s what racing is all about, and that’s how racing should be. And I think Goodyear’s done a really good job of working incredibly hard on not only trying to work on the short-track tire, but also the intermediates and bigger places like that, of just trying to find something that falls off, and you can really pay the penalty for something if you kind of abuse it. So I’m looking forward to seeing what that is. It’s nice that we have the kind of extended practice weekend, getting a few sets of tires on Friday, be able to make some longer runs, kind of see where that goes and get a feel for that.”
“Indianapolis is clearly a unique track,” said Rick Heinrich, Goodyear NASCAR product manager. “We see teams running aggressive setups here to account for the flat corners. Our new right-side tire for the Cup Series has been developed with this in mind, and our Pocono setup for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series performed as expected on a track with similarly flat corners.”
The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is also in action this weekend in the Indianapolis area, racing at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in nearby Clermont. Truck Series teams will have the same Goodyear combination for the second straight week, using the tire setup from last weekend at North Wilkesboro Speedway for their Friday night show at the 0.686-mile oval.
Tire allotments for each team competing this weekend:
- Cup Series: 14 total sets — 10 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and 3 for practice.
- O’Reilly Auto Parts Series: 6 total sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and 2 for practice.
- Craftsman Truck Series: 5 total sets — 3 new sets for the race, 1 for qualifying, which transfers to the race, and 1 for practice; if needed, 3 wet-weather sets will also be available.