Cup Series teams facing another Bristol unknown come race day

04/12/2025 06:57 PM

There might be one thing NASCAR Cup Series teams know for sure going into Sunday's race at Bristol Motor Speedway — they don't know what will happen.

"It'll be interesting to see what the mindset is there and what the reality that we live in is tomorrow, as far as what the tires do with it being a little warmer, and where ," Alex Bowman said after winning the pole. "The biggest thing is it's going to be a ton of learning on the go because, as much as we all think we know exactly what it's going to do from practice, we probably really don't have a clue, and we're going to have to learn as we go."

It's deja vu from one year ago with the spring race at Bristol.

The high tire wear race received high praise as it put tire management in the driver's hands while creating an unknown on the track of who would master it the best. A run on tires, before they started to cord or wear down enough that it became urgent to bolt on a set of new ones, was less than 50 laps.

Saturday, it appeared to be much of the same during practice, and it was unexpected.

Goodyear brought the same tire run in both races at Bristol last season. The spring race saw high tire wear, but the fall race did not.

"Everything looks the same, truthfully," Denny Hamlin said. "I wouldn't have expected it, but certainly it looks like the formula is striking again. It's going to be an interesting race to see how it all plays out. There are marbles up at the top; obviously the bottom is where you want to be, and the tires are wearing out. It should be fun."

Although there were marbles up against the wall, the track did not lay down rubber. The bottom line was the preferred lane during practice, and unless the PJ1 is reapplied, it will likely remain a one-lane racetrack.

Brad Keselowski laughed when Larry McReynolds asked, "What do you think we got here?" during the practice broadcast on Prime. Keselowski ran 18 laps in practice, which was among the fewest of any driver.

"Larry, you tell me," Keselowski said. "I don't know. We came here and tested a year and a half ago, and the tires wouldn't go 25 30 laps. We thought we were really smart, and we came back in the spring race and were prepared for that, and that's what it did. Then, after last year's spring race, where the tires wore out, we came here with the 17 car and tested and the same thing happened, and we came back thinking, OK, be ready for tire wear in the summer race. The tires could have run 200 300 laps.

"We have no idea. We really don't. I joke with people — one of the things that makes motorsports so much different to other sports is that it's like a weekly science experiment and one small variable can change everything. And the tires, that's not a small variable, that's a big variable, and we're seeing that in action."

The temperature on Saturday was 45 degrees. On Sunday, the high is supposed to be 65 degrees.

Ryan Blaney is preparing for another tire management race.

"I think it's going to be a lot of managing through the run," Blaney said. "A lot of guys had cords after 35 laps, so that's going to be really important. We'll see if we have enough tires for the end of it."

Christopher Bell said he would be surprised to see another spring 2024 race. However, Bell's comments were made before the Cup Series cars were on track Saturday.

Kyle Busch, however, expected to see a repeat of last year before he got on track Saturday. Busch pointed to the weather as the factor.

"I think, being on the same tire," of which Busch used air quotes, "Last spring and last fall, we saw the tire wear in the spring and not necessarily in the fall. I think track temp and all of that is going to have a lot to do with that. I feel like last spring race, I'm thinking we're going to see another last spring race again this spring."