NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran appeared on SiriusXM Radio’s The Morning Drive on Tuesday to discuss what was learned over the weekend with the option tire, what comes next, and what procedures might change after Chase Briscoe and the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 19 team successfully appealed its penalty from the Daytona 500.
Reason for the option tire experiment
“Yeah, I mean, it’s something we turned to last year at Richmond and what it does, it just gives us a great data point and helps Goodyear really hone in on a tire change. That got us to where we (landed) for the tire at Martinsville and it started with the All Star event.
“So we can do a lot of learning and gather a lot of data during a race as opposed to any amount of testing that you do. So the tire certainly delivered some excitement. I mean, it made drivers just go from the back to the front and it switched things up throughout the race and it was definitely good.
“There’s a lot of good data to come out of that and we’ll see what we learn. Of course, we had the Goodyear test yesterday and that was just a continuation of what we got on Sunday. So we learned a lot. I talked to Goodyear yesterday of what they thought.
“The tire really worked well. We would love it to wear out even quicker. And again, that’s the goal we’ve been trying to get to and it’s been working and we have a system in place that seems to be working very well.”
NASCAR open to more option tire races?
“Yeah, absolutely it’s (been) discussed and there’s quite a mix of emotions on that one. You know, some people enjoy it and others feel that it’s really not the way to go. So there’s quite a split on that but I don’t believe that for our championship weekend, that we’re going to put option tires into play. We’d rather have one set of tires (because) obviously, it’s easier to manage for the teams – that they can’t sneak one out with a strategy, which is part of it. So it could be (in the future) but there’s a lot of different thoughts on that.”
Logano restart line violation
“It’s really clear in the driver video, as well as all the driver crew chief notes for the rules of a particular racetrack. It’s clear you must establish the lane a line above the inside painted line, and you cannot drop down until you cross the start finish line. Obviously, Joey was on the front row at that time and did not establish the lane above the inside line, which puts all the other competitors in jeopardy of doing the same thing and following them down there. It’s a clear black and white penalty. There’s not a lot of gray or judgment in that call.”
Why are caution periods so long?
“We obviously have to capture the field. We have to give the free pass in a spot before we open pit road. We have TV (commercial time) as well that we all tie in together. We may have to add a couple of extra laps, which we did on Sunday. Now a part of that is that as we go to softer tires, we obviously get more marbles and it takes us a little bit longer to get the track back into racing condition. So, again, the softer the tire (and) the more marbles, we have to get the grooves cleaned up and that is usually an extra lap or two to do that.”
Will NASCAR change any procedure after losing JGR appeal?
“We certainly wouldn’t write a penalty if we didn’t feel it was warranted to start with. NASCAR did feel that a penalty was warranted or we certainly wouldn’t have wrote it. There is a lot of stuff that gets involved (with) appeals and a lot of discussions on procedures and team procedures and single source supplied parts. It gets quite complicated but we absolutely go back and check everything — our own systems and procedures and if it were to happen the same way, that it would be a penalty again.”
