At best, there is optimism for the new tire compound Goodyear unveiled for Martinsville Speedway during practice on Saturday afternoon but there is also a degree of indifference.
Outside of that ‘one happy accident’ at Bristol in March, the one that started all of this compound experimentation in the first place, repeated attempts to replicate those conditions haven’t quite produced the intended results.
This is the softest left side tire Goodyear has brought to the track in the NextGen era, and as Denny Hamlin examined on Saturday morning, the second softest left side the tire developer has produced.
“I think Goodyear had a softer version than this, and they said they couldn’t manufacture it very well in their facilities,” Hamlin said.
For posterity, this is the same right sides from Richmond and North Wilkesboro, where they were used as part of the softer option tire package.
So, what did teams learn on Saturday? Well, for one, how gummy this left side tire is causes them to marble in clumps instead of dust and that’s what caused Hamlin to crash in practice because one of those clumps got wedged into his throttle body.
That came to a shock to Joey Logano, who didn’t even realize exactly what had happened to the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 team.
“No kidding,” Logano said when made aware of what happened. “That is concerning.”
Remember, the Fords are susceptible to catching on fire when rubber builds up in the rocket boxes.
That was a concern Harrison Burton raised too. Todd Gilliland called what happened to Hamlin a ‘freak accident.’
“Hopefully no fires in the rocker boxes,” Burton said. “That’s what I’m concerned about honestly. I think it will be a better product. There are some worries about, like what Todd said, a freak deal but those rocker box panels too.
“It took my guys 15 minutes to wipe our car down between practice and qualifying.”
The reason for all of that, as explained by Alex Bowman, is that the tire is more oily.
“These cars notoriously collect a lot of rubber, right,” Bowman said. “I haven’t had a chance to debrief and know exactly what’s going on but what happened to the 11 is a concern. The rubber has to go somewhere.
“A lot of times lately, we’ve had tires that kind of dust. This one doesn’t. It seems like it has a lot of oil. It’s a different deal.”
The consensus was that there was more falloff but that it could be the warmer weather too.
That’s what Hendrick Motorsports No. 5 crew chief Cliff Daniels thought.
“There was fall off on the front end, but I think that was track temp related,” Daniels said. “It was a lot warmed today than it was in the spring. Balance wise, the car doesn’t seem to be much different. I didn’t see anything alarming in terms of fall off for how the race is going to play out or anything unexpected.”
Logano said ‘it’s all on the front end of the run and then it flattens out.’
“It’s not going to be a lot, but it is directionally better,” Logano said.
That was the consensus from pole sitter Martin Truex Jr., who believes having a tire advantage will actually make a difference on Sunday should strategies get mixed up.
“I think we’ve seen quite a lot more tire wear today than we have with this car lately,” Truex said. “Is it enough? I don’t know. You never know until the race starts. This place – you come here one day and you’re like this is what it is going to do, and then you come back the next day – and it is like, that is unexpected. This place is just very, very tricky. It is hard to know what is going to happen, but from what I’ve seen today, there is enough fall off, there is enough tire wear – stickers are way faster than 30, 40, 50 lap tires. Hopefully that continues.”
Even Hamlin, starting at the rear of the field with his repaired car said he felt like it was easier to pass on Saturday than it has been in the NextGen era at Martinsville.
“Well, that’s the good news, that I felt the tire was definitely an improvement from what we’ve had in the past,” Hamlin said. “It certainly had what I thought was probably twice the fall off that we had with the previous tire.
“So certainly, if the race goes long enough and green enough could make up some spots there if your car’s handling well.”
Burton said his car had falloff over the course of a practice run, but then he would come down pit road, and the same tires would pick speed right back up before slowly falling off again.
“I thought they made my car so much better but it was just the tire,” Burton said. “It’s weird that with all the rubber that’s being chunked around that none of it is laying on the surface, so I don’t know. I do think it will be a good race.
“I passed more cars today in practice than I think I have all race in the spring so that’s good and I think the track is going to move up too. So I’m excited to see if that happens.”