Cup Series teams will run new right-side tires during Sunday’s playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway (3:30 p.m. ET on USA Network, post-race show on Peacock).
Goodyear announced that these right-side tires have a construction update that is unique to Texas. The left-side tires are the same as those used during last September’s playoff race. This left-side tire code also was used this season at Fontana, Kansas, Las Vegas, Nashville, Pocono and Michigan.
Last season’s playoff race at Texas had several tire issues. Eight of the track record 16 cautions were related to tire failures causing spins or crashes.
Martin Truex Jr., Chase Elliott and Kevin Harvick all blew tires while leading. Multiple other drivers including Christopher Bell and Chris Buescher spun with right-side tire issues.
Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing, said after the race that air pressure was playing into the blown tires. He mentioned that some teams were more aggressive than others. Elliott said that Goodyear was put in a “really tough position by NASCAR” to build a tire that can survive tracks like Texas with the Next Gen car.
NASCAR and Goodyear held a two-day session at Texas Motor Speedway in July to test some potential options for Sunday’s 400-mile race. Daniel Suarez, Denny Hamlin and Joey Logano participated.
“We ran a bunch of tires, and we thought we were testing on the tire we were going to run,” Hamlin said last week at Bristol. “They’re going to come back with something a little bit different, but we still got a pretty good feel for where we’re at.”
