At the Richmond raceway, did you see how Daniel Suarez was flying in stage 2, cruising past everyone to take the lead? He had too much fun with the new ‘option’ tire. Post the race he said, “I don’t see why we don’t have an ‘option’ tire everywhere we go.” The Richmond race was the first points race where NASCAR introduced the two new variants of tires.

The softer “option” tire, offers superior grip for faster lap times but wears out quicker, while the “prime” tire provides consistent performance but has less initial traction. This move by NASCAR was to challenge the teams to decide between speed and grip. It was aimed at increasing the entertainment value of the game. Amid all this, Denny Hamlin has made a big claim when he said some of the tires that Goodyear provided at Richmond were old. Old tires can have a massive impact on speed. Was the Richmond race a level playing field?

Old tires given by Goodyear at Richmond

In the race where Austin Dillon took the controversial victory, NASCAR had decided to do an experiment with their new kinds of tires. The tires are easily distinguishable by their colour-coded markings: red for the softer, faster option and yellow for the more durable prime. Each team receives six sets of soft tires and two sets of hard ones. The strategic dilemma lies in balancing speed and grip. This is an attempt from NASCAR to solidify their short-track package. We might also see them in the playoff race in Bristol which is the next short track in the Cup series schedule.

Denny Hamlin, in a recent episode of Actions Detrimental agreed that the two variants of tires do add a certain element to the race which is interesting to him. Although, according to Hamlin, there were lapses in quality control. Among the set of tires provided some of them were old. He also spoke about how all the teams faced the issue; he said, “Everyone did. Everyone in the field had some newer tires, some older.” Further in the conversation, Hamlin went on to explain why this caused the race to not be a level playing field. As the older the tire the slower the car. So someone with a week-old tire will be faster than someone with a month-old tire. Who knows, maybe Austin Dillon had the newest ones since he suddenly seemed to have a great pace in the series.

Hamlin explained this with an example. He said, “In Martinsville, you would put on a set of tires that was just a little bit newer and your car would go three-tenths faster. You changed nothing. All you did was put on a newer tire and it would go faster.” Hamlin urged Goodyear to have some quality control to ensure a level playing field. Tires are one of the most crucial elements of racing. It can prove to be the difference between a victory and a loss. Hamlin has always been pretty vocal about the use of tires in NASCAR. Previously, he had spoken about the volume of money teams spend on tires.

Do you know how much money is spent on tires in NASCAR?

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Tires are a critical component in NASCAR, and teams spare no expense on them. In a recent video of Joe Gibbs racing they gave an entire breakdown of how much money is spent. The video was captioned saying, “Events such as the clash requires to have five sets of tires. While others such as the Coke 600 require us to have 14 sets. At this point in the year, we have had 24 race weekends, and our team has four cars. Each car needed 246 sets of tires, meaning our total of 985 sets, which is 3940 tires.” The video claims that each tire set costs around $550, taking the total to $2.167 million.

This shows how crucial a tire is and teams are willing to spend but load of money on them. Denny Hamlin highlighted in another episode of Actions Detrimental, the sheer volume of tires purchased by teams that go unused. According to Hamlin, “How much JGR had an extra tire inventory in the first year of next-gen, 2022? How much money was spent and never ran? Nearly one million! Nearly one million dollars worth of tires, that JGR spent on tires that it never ran.” Further in the podcast, Hamlin also spoke about how Goodyear doesn’t refund them any money for the unused tires, as they age with time. Hence, a huge amount of tires are wasted every year.

How did you find the new variants of tires in the Richmond race? Let us know in the comments below.