Goodyear's option tires at Richmond "were like Mario Kart with a star"

NASCAR and Goodyear gave each team two sets of “option” (or softer) tires it could use in the 400-lap event in addition to the four sets of its “prime” (or regular harder) tires.

It was up to teams when to utilize them in the race. The only stipulation was that they had change all four tires when putting on the options.

Drivers Daniel Suarez and Michael McDowell were the first to try the tires during pit stops following the end of the Stage 1 and both rocketed through the field, gaining a considerable advantage over the competition for about 30 to 40 laps.

“Hats off to Goodyear and all the folks in Akron. Their team has done a phenomenal job with the option tire, and I thought we learned a lot,” said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition. “There was a lot of a lot of really good strategy with it.

“If you look at what (Suarez) and (McDowell) did early, I mean, they kind of saved their races. So, I thought there were a lot of positives there. We’ll debrief on that topic as well with Goodyear and our competitors and see how everyone thought it went.”

Suarez praised NASCAR for the decision to use them in a regular race. Previously, NASCAR has tried them in a pair of All-Star races with mixed results.

“These option tires, if NASCAR and the fans didn’t like it, I don’t know what they would like because they were amazing,” he said. “The strategy played a huge role in what everyone was doing; what we were doing and everyone’s different agenda.

“It was fun. I enjoyed it. The guys did an amazing job with the strategy. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out at the end, but we gave it a shot and we ended up with a 10th place finish.”

Asked what it felt like when he powered through the field at the start of Stage 2, Suarez said, “It was fun. It was like Mario Kart with a star.”

Reigning series champion Ryan Blaney also thought the option tire provided multiple strategy plays for teams.

“I thought it was neat to see who put them on and when,” he said. “They would go and then they would kind of fall off a cliff, so I thought that was pretty neat how it reacted like that.

“I’ll be curious to see what happens going forward.”

Goodyear pleased with the result

Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing, said he believed the option tire “worked exactly as it was intended.”

“They fired off immediately and were more than a half-second faster than the prime, which is big on a short track. Also, the options gave up significantly more than the primes over a long run,” he said.

“What was really exciting was how different teams used the option tire at different times to accomplish their own goals. For example, Daniel Suarez put them on early in the race and charged from the middle of the pack to take the lead, while Kyle Busch put them on at the end of Stage 2 to try to get a lap back.

“Overall, the primes/options tire set-ups highlighted the risk versus reward we were exactly looking for.”