Tire Wear Expected to be Major Factor in Food City 500 at Bristol

While everyone fully expected that Goodyear would never let what happened in last Spring's Food City 500 at Bristol happen again, it appears that aggressive tire wear may in fact be a wrinkle that NASCAR Cup Series teams will have to work around in Sunday's race.

In Saturday's NASCAR Cup Series practice session at Bristol Motor Speedway, tires were wearing at a fevered pace, to the point that tire-cording was occurring after roughly 40 lap runs on the 0.533-mile concrete high-banked oval. To put it in perspective, it's not uncommon to run 100 or more laps on a set of tires at Bristol under normal conditions.

Due to the excessive tire wear on Saturday, Goodyear has taken the proactive step of adding an additional set of tires to the allotment for teams in Sunday's race. As a result, teams will have 11 sets of tires for Sunday's race, 10 sets of sticker tires in addition to their set of scuffed tires from qualifying.

While it's unexpected, for some, the high-tire-wear that is seemingly in store for Sunday is a welcomed sight.

“I think we’re all much more prepared than we were last spring,” said Alex Bowman, who secured the pole position for Sunday's race. “I’m excited for a tire-management race. It’s going to be a lot of fun. We’ll see what we’ve got."

Denny Hamlin, who won this race last season, and comes into Sunday's event on a two-race winning streak, was one that didn't expect to see the tires wearing out this time around at Bristol, but after practice described that he feels things are shaping up like they did heading into last year's Food City 500.

"I wouldn't have expected it, but certainly it looks like the formula is striking again," Hamlin said in a post-practice interview on Prime Video. "Everyone probably came here thinking we're going all out, but maybe that's not the case."

So, if high-tire-wear was on the menu during this exact race last year, why didn't teams expect that to be the case this time around at Bristol Motor Speedway? Simply, because in the Fall, Goodyear brought this exact same tire back to Bristol Motor Speedway, and there were no tire wear issues whatsoever the entire weekend.

“We started practice with rubber already on the track from the Xfinity cars, peeled it right up, and sawed the tires right off. Yeah, confusing why we’re doing it again when we didn’t do it in the fall," Bowman said during his pole-winner press conference.

It's led some to hypothesize that lower temperatures cause these Goodyear tires to wear out faster than warmer temperatures.

While teams, who expected tire wear to not be a factor, will have a chance to make changes to their cars overnight to compensate for the excessive tire wear, the question becomes will they be able to adjust things to make enough of a difference? That remains to be seen.

But there's a very real chance that whoever is hoisting the trophy at victory lane at the end of 500 laps of racing at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday will be the one who can manage his throttle pedal, and the tire wear the best.

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