Bristol Was Fun, So Getting Rid of Tire Wear Would Be a Mistake

With all the negativity surrounding short track races with the Next Gen car in the last two years, last Sunday’s (March 17) Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway was an all-time classic that served as a beacon of hope for this car on NASCAR’s shortest ovals.

And the kicker? The action we saw on Sunday happened by complete accident.

The tire that Goodyear brought was the same one used at Bristol last September, but it was a combination of 60-degree weather, resin applied to the track by NASCAR and the track not taking rubber that created the perfect storm of extreme tire wear at Bristol.

The result? An all-time NASCAR Cup Series record of 54 lead changes on a short track, and a strategy game of the drivers and crew chiefs conserving their tires and equipment while maintaining pace with the front of the pack. And unlike many races of today, the dreaded words dirty air, aero push and aero tight were never a factor.

Many drivers expressed that they had fun racing once they got out of their cars, and others remarked about how unique of a challenge it was to face the circumstances they were dealt.

But of course, the event wasn’t universally acclaimed by everyone. Some onlookers were disappointed that the drivers had to lay back and not go all out on the racetrack, and Ryan Blaney likened the tire management at Bristol to the excessive fuel saving seen by the pack at the start of the 2024 Daytona 500.

The event was predominantly praised overall, however. And after the non-stop discussions about raising the horsepower of the Next Gen cars and NASCAR’s hesitation to do after the prior event at Phoenix Raceway, Bristol showed that horsepower isn’t the only avenue to pursue in improving the racing quality of these cars.

That said, there is a fine line between an acceptable amount of tire wear and a fiasco like the infamous 2008 Brickyard 400. Bristol was nowhere close to that embarrassment of race — even if the situation looked bleak in the first 150 laps — as only one driver failed to finish the race while almost everyone else brought their car home in one piece.

But Sunday was on the verge…