Denny Hamlin Tips His Hat to Goodyear’s North Wilkesboro Experiment With an Unexpected Verdict

For this year’s All-Star at the newly revamped North Wilkesboro Speedway, Goodyear had rolled out a new tire. Being called the ‘option’ tire, this new soft tire variation has received mixed reviews thus far. However, NASCAR and Goodyear have got some much-needed backing from Denny Hamlin.

In a video uploaded by Frontstretch, we see Hamlin talking to the reporters after the race. We hear the #11 Toyota driver say, “Hat’s off to Goodyear and NASCAR for trying this, certainly was a great experiment, that certainly we can learn from for future.“

Being the on-track expert that he is, he was quick to get into the reasoning. The 3-time Daytona 500 winner had insights to share when asked if the colder temperatures might have affected the fall-off.

Denny Hamlin stated, “I’m not sure what it was. I would’ve never thought they would’ve lasted as long as they did.“ He added, “You would think the track being faster now at night, it would wear the tires more, but it just keeps getting more rubbered in, and as it gets rubbered in, the tire stops wearing.“

This year’s All-Star race appeared to be more of a war of divided opinions than the others. While the motorsport world was apparently just about to get to unanimity on the repavement of the Key to the Blue Ridge, the new tires seem to have divided the NASCAR fraternity further. Although Denny Hamlin seems satisfied, there was an apparent rift of opinion in his own team, 23XI Racing.

Questions arose from within 23XI Racing about the content opinion of Denny Hamlin

Recently, Tyler Reddick, who drives for Hamlin’s team, had his own set of opinions about the Goodyear experiment, and they weren’t very similar to Denny Hamlin’s.

Addressing the media, he said, “More grip is a good thing, but that just means we’re closer to wide open, … that hurts racing too at the same time.” Although he did acknowledge the fact that the issue might be resolved with time, the #45 Toyota driver made it clear that the fall-off wasn’t as much as he had expected.

For this year’s All-Star, NASCAR went forward with 3 types of tires. First and foremost, the regular/prime tires. Second on the list were the talk of the hour ‘option’ tires, the softer option. And lastly, the wet weather rain tires. The idea here was to force the team to play the strategic game. This makes things much more exciting, which is the opposite of what we have been witnessing for short tracks recently. But what did you feel about Goodyear’s gamble? Do you think that is a step in the right direction?