For this year’s NASCAR Cup Series All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Goodyear Racing will enhance the racing and pit strategy by bringing both “Prime” and “Option” tires for teams to run.
The Option tire has the same construction as the Prime tire, but will feature the more tractive tread compound that Goodyear uses on its wet weather tire for Cup competition, just with a “slick” tread and no tread pattern. The Option tread compound will provide teams with more grip and wear quicker, thus leading to more lap-time fall-off and tire management becoming a bigger factor for drivers.
Both the Prime and Option tires came out of a Goodyear tire test on the recently repaved North Wilkesboro Speedway on March 12-13. Teams participating in that test were the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota (Ty Gibbs), Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet (William Byron) and Penske Racing Ford (Joey Logano).
“At our North Wilkesboro test, there was significantly more lap-time fall-off with what has become the Option tire than we had with the Prime,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “We have been working very hard on our short track tire package and we wanted to evaluate something that is more aggressive. The All-Star race format, in a non-points setting, is the perfect opportunity to do that.”
NASCAR has set the rules for when the Option can or must be run. Cup teams will have three sets of Primes and two sets of Options for practice/qualifying/heats or Open. For the 200-lap All-Star main event only, teams will have an additional two sets of Primes and two sets of Options.
“NASCAR has decided that all teams will start the All-Star race on the Option tire and based on what we saw at the test, a tire change will be needed within the first 100 laps,” said Stucker. “Tire management will be key to going as deep as possible in that first run. Tire wear, and by extension tire management, makes for great racing by creating fall-off and putting more of an emphasis on a driver’s ability to be easier on their tires early in a run and then being able to pass more cars late.”
To differentiate the tires and easily identify what teams are running, the Prime tire will carry the standard yellow “Goodyear” and “Eagle” lettering, while the Option tire will feature red letters. As on all short tracks, Goodyear will also have white-lettered wet weather tires on hand, should NASCAR decide that conditions warrant. Wet weather tires were run in last year’s All-Star event at North Wilkesboro.
Goodyear Racing PR
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