BRISTOL, Tenn. — After seeing how tires wore in Saturday’s practice session, drivers anticipate that Sunday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway will mirror last spring’s event, which saw tire wear create one of the more memorable races at this high-banked half-mile track.
Last spring’s race had 16 different leaders and a track-record 54 lead changes.
Alex Bowman claims his second pole of the season.
A key factor with the tire wear is that the temperature is expected to be around 60 degrees at the start of Sunday’s race. That’s similar to the temperature at the start of last spring’s race. Saturday’s temperatures were cooler.
“I think all signs point to a race like the spring,” pole-winner Alex Bowman said Saturday. “We started practice with rubber already on the racetrack from the Xfinity cars and peeled it right up.”
Points leader William Byron also pointed to the weather as the main factor.
“I think it’s just because it’s so cold,” Byron told NBC Sports. “The track temp plays such a big factor. … For whatever reason it’s not laying rubber. Probably look really similar to last (spring).”
Asked if he was surprised by what happened Saturday, Chris Buescher told NBC Sports: “Every time I come to Bristol right now is a surprise.”
What does Kyle Larson expect? He doesn’t know.
“I wasn’t too surprised earlier today when Cup practice went the way it did,” he said. “But then I won’t be surprised (Sunday) if it lays rubber. So, I don’t really know what to expect. You kind of got to be ready for everything.”
Bristol is one of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.’s better tracks, having scored four top-five and seven top-10 finishes there.
Teams will have nine sets of tires plus one set transferred from qualifying for the 500-lap race. Teams were caught off guard by the tire wear in last spring’s race, so NASCAR had Goodyear provide an extra set of tires for all teams.
No decision has been announced if NASCAR will give teams an extra set of tires for Sunday’s race.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who starts second, has another question in mind for today’s race
“I think the biggest thing is just making sure we get with NASCAR to know when and how they’re going to throw cautions because I felt like that killed us last race,” Stenhouse told NBC Sports. “I took care of my tires and guys would go hard and blow (them) and then spin on purpose and (NASCAR) would throw a caution, and I never could get my track position.
“Then that last run, I’m saving my tires, saving my tires, thinking we’re going to get (a caution) and all of a sudden there’s no caution. So just kind of figuring how how they’re going to police that would be the biggest thing.”
Last spring’s race averaged a caution every 41 laps through the first 369 laps and then didn’t have a caution the final 121 laps.
Read the full article here
