Tire Terror Leads to Denny Hamlin Win at Bristol

For anyone crying for NASCAR to return to its roots, their wish was granted in the Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway on Sunday night.

With Bristol Motor Speedway's return to concrete in the Spring race, so did a past era of NASCAR racing. Drivers fought with the track all race as they had to push to preserve their tires more than in any recent NASCAR race. Denny Hamlin, who cut his teeth on the short tracks in the Mid-Atlantic region, held on to win his fourth Cup race at Bristol ahead of his teammate Martin Truex Jr. Hamlin would lead in 13 separate intervals for a total of 163 laps.

This was NASCAR’s third-only attempt on the concrete track with the Gen 7 car since last year’s spring date was raced on dirt, and it behaved extremely differently than it did in the fall race, even though both races ended with the same result of a Hamlin win.

Early on, drivers were running through tires at an unprecedented rate, leading NASCAR to allow each team an extra set of tires to hopefully make it to the end of the race. NASCAR took away a set of tires from the overall allotment between the Fall and Spring races and had to adjust their mistake mid-race.

Tire management is a telltale sign of a good short-track racer, and it’s no surprise that the series veterans were the few who were able to hold on until the end of the race.

Besides the two Joe Gibbs Racing teammates in front, only three others stayed on the lead lap to end the race. RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski finished third, and Hendrick Motorsports drivers Alex Bowman and Kyle Larson rounded out the top five, although if given a few more laps, chances are the Hendrick drivers would’ve been lapped as well based on the differential in the leader's lap times and advantage of clean air.

This was the first time since Dover in 2004 that five cars or fewer finished on the lead lap.

Throughout the race, the track would not take rubber, and a narrow racing line could be created at the bottom, but there was little to no grip as the cars moved up the track. Greg Stuckler, the Director of Race Tires Sales for Goodyear, was on location to give perspective to the tire situation.

“We tested here last year with the intent to come up with a tire package that generated more tire wear,” Stuckler told NASCAR on FOX’s Bob Pockrass. “That was the request from NASCAR and the teams. We feel like we had a very successful test, we feel like we had a very successful race in the fall of last year. We ran a full fuel stop and definitely saw wear, but we thought it was spot on.

We’re trying to understand what’s different and why the race track is behaving differently than it did a year ago. It’s the same package; it’s the same tire combination. Obviously, the difference is that resin was placed on the lower grove instead of PJ1. I still think that the racetrack should’ve been taking rubber as it did last fall. It took rubber immediately during that race."

Tire management became everything; those in front of the pack with clean air could control their pace and keep their throttle slightly higher than the rest of the pack. Still, no matter how much some of the drivers felt like they were saving, it wasn’t enough, and some of the newest drivers in the field nights ended in heartbreak.

Ty Gibbs led 205 laps the most of his career and claimed his first two stage wins, but on the last run, he lost his right rear. This was coming off his highest career finish last week at Phoneix International Speedway.

“I felt like we were great all day," Gibbs said via the Toyota Racing News Release. "That last run, the right rear just came apart. We were just two laps late coming in. When we had that tire come apart, I think I was like four laps down at one point. Just frustrating, but you have to work for it here.”

Hamlin stayed out the latest of any driver and, with that, had the most usable tires at the end of the race.

“Once it became a tire management race, I liked our chances,” Hamlin said in his post-race interview, “Obviously, the veteran Martin [Truex Jr] was also good.”

Experience paid off in the race as the podium was filled with the three most veteran drivers in the field. Truex and Hamlin both debuted as Cup Series rookies in 2006 and Keselowski in 2010.

As drivers had to slow and conserve their tires, it led to 52 lead changes in the course of a 266.5 mile, 500 lap race, the most of any race on a track shorter than a mile in NASCAR history.

At the end of the day, the racing was hard, and most drivers loved that. We're seeing a NASCAR season that's shaping up to have a vast amount of different types of races; some decided on pit row, some decided by a few milliseconds, and this one plagued with tire wear. What we get out of this is a well-rounded season and a well-rounded champion.

Of note, NASCAR's Chief Racing Development Officer John Probst met with media after the race to talk about the positives and negatives of the race.

“Certainly a record-setting day for us," Probst said in a post-race scrum, "I know the race teams are pretty worn out right now; I know our track crews and folks up in the booth are pretty worn out just from the exciting day all around on the track. Certainly had some anxiety around tire wear and things like that. All in all, I think it was probably one of the best short-track races I’ve ever seen.”

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