The softer tire Goodyear brought to Richmond Raceway for the Cook Out 400 has some competitors questioning whether the 10 sets each team receives is enough for the NASCAR Cup Series event.
In fact, when Brad Keselowski was asked if they had enough tires for Saturday night’s 400-lap race he responded, “We’re in trouble.”
“If you look at the amount of tires we have, we have enough tires to go, I think, it’s like 45 laps a set. Not enough,”
Of the 10 sets given each team, there are only eight new sets for the race. One set was for practice and then one set for qualifying. The qualifying set transfers to the race.
Goodyear said the Richmond tires were the same combination used at Bowman Gray Stadium, Martinsville Speedway and North Wilkesboro Speedway earlier this year. It was introduced last fall at Martinsville. The right-side tire was the option tire that was used at Richmond last year. The left-side tire is slightly softer than the one used last year.
“The tire that’s supposed to be the option tire doesn’t look like the option tire, doesn’t drive like the option tire, can be harder to run more than 50 laps on it,” Keselowski said. “Maybe something will change, and we’ll get in the night time, and the tires will extend their life cycle, more than what we’ve seen in practice, but right now, it does not look good.”
Keselowski says there is a window for tires that’s ideal. It’s between having tires too hard where driver skill is removed from the equation and having them too soft to where they degrade so badly that the race car can’t be driven.
“In general, I think over the years when we’ve missed the window, we’ve missed it on the conservative side,” Keselowski said. “It appears this weekend, we probably missed it on the aggressive side.”
A North Carolina native, Deb Williams is an award-winning motorsports journalist who is in her fourth decade covering auto racing. In addition to covering the sport for United Press International, she has written motorsports articles for several newspapers, magazines and websites including espnW.com, USA Today, and The Charlotte Observer. Her awards include the American Motorsports Media Award of Excellence, two-time National Motorsports Press Association writer of the year, and two-time recipient of the Russ Catlin award. She also has won an award in the North Carolina Press Association’s sports feature category. During her career, Deb has been managing editor of GT Motorsports magazine and was with Winston Cup Scene and NASCAR Winston Cup Scene for 18 years, serving as the publication’s editor for 10 years. In 2024 she was inducted into the NMPA Hall of Fame.
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