BRISTOL, TN - AUGUST 22: Carl Edwards, driver of the #19 Stanley Toyota, leads David Ragan, driver of the #55 Aaron's Online Dream Machine Toyota, and Joey Logano, driver of the #22 Shell Pennzoil Ford, during the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series IRWIN Tools Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on August 22, 2015 in Bristol, Tennessee. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
Bristol – Short Track that races like a Speedway
Racing News
Unique tire challenges when NASCAR unloads at Bristol Motor Speedway
While Bristol Motor Speedway is considered a short track at just more than a half-mile in length, it truly falls more into the speedway category of tracks. With its steep banking, the loads and speeds generated at Bristol are closer to those of much bigger tracks.
Because of that, the construction of Goodyear’s left- and right-side tires are built to handle those loads and speeds, as well as optimizing handling. The other challenge at Bristol is the concrete surface.
The tire set-up, and specifically the compounds for Bristol, match up well with the track surface and lay down rubber quickly, leading to the development of multiple racing grooves and competitive, side-by-side racing.
“Bristol provides several challenges when designing and building a tire set-up,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing.
Bristol is also very much like a speedway
-Greg Stucker
He continued, “It’s important to rubber-in the concrete surface, and the compounds we run do that both quickly and to the proper degree. Bristol is also very much like a speedway in that the high banks generate a lot of speed and a high amount of loading.
He concluded, “The tire set-up that we bring takes that into account while enhancing the stability and handling of the cars through the corners.”
Notes: Teams in all three NASCAR national series will run the same Goodyear tire set-up at Bristol this week . . . this is the same combination of left- and right-side tires that NASCAR teams have run at Bristol since August 2014.
Bristol is the only track at which NASCAR teams are scheduled to run either of these two tire codes . . . unlike on most NASCAR ovals one mile or less in length, on which teams generally do not run inner liners in their tires, teams are required to run liners in their right-side tires only at Bristol . . . air pressure in those inner liners should be 12-25 psi greater than that of the outer tire.