Goodyear tire test takes place at New Hampshire

Dale Earnhardt Jr., Denny Hamlin, Aric Almirola and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. tested tires for Goodyear in what is expected to be the eighth and final scheduled test for 2016. 

Stenhouse, who finished 13th last fall at the one-mile track, was pleased with the early results. 

“I thought the (first) day went really well,” Stenhouse said. “The sun came out and was baking the track. Once we got rubber down, we went through seven or eight different sets of tires. I think we came up with the one that had good grip at the beginning of the run and it fell off at the end of the run — hoping that it falls off, People want tires but then people try to stay out and hopefully create better racing and more passing. More passing is what we’re looking for in our whole series right now — just better racing. 

“I think coming to tire tests and trying to figure out tires, I think Goodyear is doing a good job at trying to come up with the best possible tire to make that happen.”

Kyle Busch won the July race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway last July. The fall contest was won by Matt Kenseth. The selected tire codes for last fall’s race at Loudon were D-4564 for the left sides and D-4566 for the rights. 

Although the teams concentrated primarily on tire runs on Tuesday, Stenhouse hoped to work on dialing in the No. 17 Roush Fenway Racing Ford during Wednesday's exercises.

“For us, we didn’t get a lot of time to make changes to the car, but I felt we made some gains to it towards the end of the day,” Stenhouse said. “(Wednesday), we should be able to practice a little bit more, do some more fine tuning and learn about our car more. Today was more about doing what Goodyear needs and running a lot of laps, some longer runs on some tires and doing a confirmation test on what’s the best.”