BRISTOL, Tenn. – With tires that couldn’t last more than 40 to 50 laps without blowing out in the NASCAR Cup Series race at Bristol Motor Speedway in March, this Saturday’s (Sept. 21) Bass Pro Shops Night Race was expected to be the exclamation point on what has already been a wild and unusual Round of 16, following two unorthodox races at Atlanta Motor Speedway and Watkins Glen International.
The Cup field is running the exact same tires at Bristol this weekend as they did in March, so the general consensus was that tires would at least play some factor in Saturday’s race – even if the wear proved to be far less extreme than it was in March.
But Friday’s (Sept. 20) practice and qualifying sessions provided far more questions than answers for the Cup field, as there was little to no tire wear despite some teams running more than 100 laps in the 45-minute practice session.
“[Felt like] old Bristol, last year,” said Ross Chastain. “Spring seems to be an asterisk. I haven’t seen anything or felt anything that felt like the spring so far. As we ran through that first run and we all got to lap 20-30, I’m like waiting on it to slip or waiting on them to say, ‘caution, someone blew a tire.’ But we ran over 50, almost 60 laps and it felt like old Bristol.
“I don’t know why it did it in the spring and I don’t know why it’s doing what it is now.”
Other drivers were also puzzled by the lack of tire wear, including Brad Keselowski.
“I don’t know what in the world’s going on,” Keselowski said. “We went from not thinking we could make 40 laps to thinking we can run 1,000 laps on tires. I don’t think anybody knows what’s going on there.”
RFK Racing tested at Bristol with Chris Buescher‘s No. 17 car in August and that test showed a ton of tire wear, which made Saturday’s practice session all the more perplexing.
“It’s so hard to predict,” Keselowski said. “We’re all over the place. We came and tested here in March, saw super high tire wear, didn’t believe it, went and ran the race and it wore the tires right out. Then we came back here in August with the [No.] 17 car, tires couldn’t go 20 laps again. Thought, ‘Oh, that’s what we’re going to have when we come back,’ and now we’re showing no tire wear. So we have no idea what to expect.
“… We don’t know what the variable is. So, until we…
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