BRISTOL, Tenn. — Crew chiefs could have their eyes glued to 2 issues in Sunday’s Meals Metropolis 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway: tires and traction compound.
Goodyear introduced a brand new tire mixture to the 0.533-mile high-banked quick observe, one meant to be much less depending on various climate situations than earlier iterations dropped at the “World’s Quickest Half-Mile.” Moreover, PJ1 traction compound has been sprayed alongside the underside of every set of corners, creating extra grip alongside the yellow line.
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By Saturday’s follow session, that decrease lane remained the dominant, most popular groove. The Goodyear rubber cooperated with the situations, laying into the observe’s concrete floor to create a visual black streak to disclose the place drivers drove.
The query crew chiefs will ponder in Sunday’s race (3 p.m. ET, FS1, HBO Max, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio) is how the traits of the observe evolve over 500 laps of heart-pounding motion.
“I believe it’s extra so what the PJ1’s gonna do,” No. 38 crew chief Ryan Bergenty informed NASCAR.com Saturday. “If the PJ1 comes up, does the rubber on the proper sides make it slicker on the backside? After which it’s a matter of how many individuals migrate to the highest. You’ll be able to’t go up there by your self as a result of it’s nonetheless soiled, however in case you get a handful of vehicles that go up there and there’s tempo up there, then individuals go up there. For me, it’s (Saturday night time), having a plan and adjustability within the automobile.
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“It’s best for me to simply say the observe’s going to do two issues and I give you these two situations and have a sport plan for both of them. To give you one or 20 will not be practical. So I’ll look (Saturday) at some photographs and the way the observe took rubber. There was a pair cautions between follow. See if it pulled any rubber up like a Dover type, and then you definitely simply sort of throw a dart on the wall of what the PJ1 goes to do after we put a pair hundred laps on it.”
Bergenty and driver Zane Smith have been Thirteenth-quickest in follow earlier than qualifying fifteenth. Charles Denike, crew chief of the No. 23 23XI Racing Toyota, watched his driver Bubba Wallace follow fifth-fastest earlier than qualifying twelfth. Denike’s curiosity matched Bergenty’s: When will the highest lane change into the popular lane?
“It’s how shortly the lane can transfer up, when the highest takes some rubber, ” Denike informed NASCAR.com. “The PJ1 will put on out over time on the underside. We’ll undergo a interval the place the 2 lanes are equal, after which who is aware of after that? So understanding what our steadiness is on the highest versus the underside, it’s positively two completely different lanes that we’ve acquired to take care of.”
NASCAR Cup Sequence at Bristol.
Denike and the No. 23 staff had the benefit of being considered one of three testers for each Goodyear and NASCAR final November, becoming a member of the No. 48 Hendrick Motorsports group and the No. 60 RFK Racing staff in testing the right-side tire that was chosen for this weekend’s competitors, in addition to the upper horsepower and short-track diffuser new to Bristol this yr. The comparability from the check to this weekend isn’t actual — particularly contemplating the chilly situations in late November — however it is sufficient to give the No. 23 staff consolation in its learnings.
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“It’s clearly completely different than the check,” Denike stated. “All the pieces’s just a little bit completely different, so attempting to adapt to that. Excellent news is that we’re shut, so encouraging for what we have to work on (Saturday) to enter (Sunday).”
The opposite distinctive characteristic of Bristol is twin pit roads — one pit lane on the frontstretch and one other on the backstretch. Beneath green-flag situations, drivers can merely enter and exit their respective pit lanes for service. However underneath warning, vehicles enter pit highway on the backstretch and preserve pit pace all the way in which onto the frontstretch pits, exiting on the entry of Flip 1.
Bergenty selected pit stall No. 24 for Sunday’s race, which is the stall second from pit exit on the backstretch getting into Flip 3. There’s loads of information to counsel which pit stalls to pick out. Bergenty prefers to go extra by intuition.
“I put an emphasis on most likely not a lot analytics, the numbers of it, however I concentrate extra to what makes it simpler on the driving force,” Bergenty stated. “So I take advantage of extra optics than analytics if that is smart. And that’s only a type of mine. Everybody does one thing completely different, however I simply put myself in his seat, understanding pit highway goes to be tight — a multitude out and in. What’s going to be the simplest for him to execute? And I really feel like that’s sort of the place our staff’s at proper now. We really feel like we are able to run tenth to fifteenth any weekend to this point this yr, and we simply have to function like that on pit highway. And so we don’t should be chasing tenths of roll time on pit highway. We should be chasing optimizing our day.”
