Goodyear to debut new, softer right-side tires for Bristol Night Race
NASCAR Cup Series teams will race with a new, softer right-side tire from Goodyear this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, a shift that brings a new wrinkle to the first elimination race of the 2025 playoffs.
The move to a slightly softer right-side rubber compound in Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race (7:30 p.m. ET, USA Network, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) marks the first change after four Bristol events with the same tire setup. Goodyear joined the track in announcing the decision last Friday, indicating that the new right-sides should promote greater wear — providing an extra opportunity for tire management to factor into the strategy for both teams and drivers.
The annual 500-lap night race on the 0.533-mile track is the last of three races in the postseason’s opening Round of 16. The outcome will determine the 12 drivers who advance to the playoffs’ next round and the four drivers who will be bumped from championship eligibility.
Goodyear officials noted weather changes as a prime reason for selecting the weekend’s tire setup. The Cup Series last raced at Bristol during the daytime on April 13, when high temperatures in the Tennessee hills only topped out in the mid-60s. Though the postseason’s Round of 16 finale this weekend will be an evening start as the sun sets, the green flag will wave after an afternoon with temps forecast to reach the low 80s.
Mark Keto, Goodyear Senior Project Manager for NASCAR, said that with cars putting down more rubber in warmer conditions on the high-banked concrete surface, a pivot toward more tread wear was the preference.
“The big thing is the track temperature difference between the spring races and the fall race,” Keto said. “We know concrete, particularly Bristol, is very finicky when it comes to track temp on this Next Gen car and the entire setup we’ve been running. As we saw in the spring of last year, we had significant higher wear, probably a little too heavy. Then, in the fall, kind of flipped the script because the warmer track temp. So we wanted to make a change. Drivers have asked us to be aggressive.”
An aggressive stance toward softer Goodyear rubber and advanced wear has been a trend in recent years, especially on NASCAR’s shorter ovals. A springtime meet on Bristol’s bullring last season provided a crossroads moment toward that direction, with Denny Hamlin prevailing in a wild 500-lapper with a record 54 lead changes and significant tire wear — “a drastic departure from what we expected,” Goodyear reps said at the time.
Goodyear officials and NASCAR have collaborated to find a happy medium ever since, and this weekend’s adjustment is part of that plan.
“I don’t think they want tire drama like we had a couple years ago,” said Trackhouse’s Ross Chastain, one of 16 drivers aiming to stave off elimination Saturday night. “At the end of the day, it all has to go through the tire to get to the track. I trust the folks at Goodyear to do what they do best. This is their wheelhouse, pun intended. I trust them to bring a good tire that’s going to work for me and be reliable, and also pay a penalty if I abuse it and it’s going to slow down later in the run. Whatever it is, we will learn from it. That’s why we have practice.”
Said Keto: “It’s softer, but not softer in the sense that we’re trying to add a bunch of grip. It’s softer in the sense of we’re trying to get more tread wear when we know the track takes rubber and is rubbered in, obviously tire wear and entire fall-off get reduced when the track takes rubber. So we’re trying to get more tread wear when the track does have rubber on it.”
The amount of rubber that will be worked in could be excessive. Four series will be in action at Bristol during a three-day span, with the Xfinity Series, Craftsman Truck Series and ARCA Menards Series scheduled as preliminaries to the Cup Series main event.
Cup Series director Brad Moran said Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that competition officials plan to treat the track’s bottom lane — four feet off the apron — with a traction compound, with the potential to reapply the product each day depending on how the rubber reacts.
Goodyear officials indicated that the left-side tire will remain unchanged from the Cup Series’ most recent Bristol stop in April. The new right-side Bristol rubber will be making its only scheduled appearance this season. Cup Series teams will have 11 sets of tires available — nine fresh for the race, one for practice and another set that carries over from qualifying to the race.
Keto said that Goodyear tire tests have been held at Bristol in the summertime months the last two years. This summer, Goodyear was unable to schedule a test session at Bristol because of the major transformation that the venue underwent for last month’s Major League Baseball Speedway Classic.
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