By David Morgan, Associate Editor
NEWTON, Iowa – For the second day in a row, tires were the talk of the town at Iowa Speedway.
After the NASCAR Cup Series had its issues with tire failures in practice on Friday, it was the Xfinity Series turn during Saturday’s HyVee Perks 250.
Throughout the day, drivers and teams were riding the ragged edge wondering if they were going to be the next to feel the wrath of the tire gods. When all was said and done, more than an handful of drivers had the unfortunate luck of feeling their Goodyears let go mid-corner and just be along for the ride until making impact with the SAFER barrier.
The first to run into problems was A.J. Allmendinger, just 35 laps into the 250-lap event.
Heading through Turn 4, the right front let go on Allmendinger’s No. 16 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, sending him into the outside wall. His car would skid back down the track and come to rest in the tri-oval grass before he climbed from his car to the attention of the safety crew.
“The Cirkul Chevy, it started building a little tight, but it wasn’t out of the realm of being super tight. Actually when I ran the bottom, I was tighter even though there’s more rubber down there. So, I thought running the top was kind of helping the tires. We had some speed up there. I had found a good line and we were starting to gain on that next group of cars,” Allmendinger explained of the chain of events leading up to the failure.
“At the end of the day, disappointing, but I can’t thank all of the men and women at Kaulig Racing enough. The 16 group, we’re having a tough time. It’d be easy to quit and just kind of give up on the year, but we’ve got plenty of racing left and some good tracks coming up. We’ll fight, regroup, and be ready again next week.”
Jeb Burton was the next to have an issue with his tires at the end of Stage 1, but he was able to stay in the race to finish 24th.
Jesse Love was not as fortunate, ending Stage 2 in the outside wall in Turn 4. Love was running just outside the top-10, but fading as he was clearly battling some kind of issue, before it all came to an end on Lap 151.
“I’m alright,” Love said after being checked and released from the Infield Care Center. “I told myself when I got out if I wanted to do this for a living, I’ve got to be tough to take some bigger hits. I’ve never seen it on the TV, but it was a pretty big one. I’ve wrecked midgets and sprint…
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