'Roval' tire test set for Charlotte

Tuesday, 17 October 2017


By Kelly Crandall


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A two-day Goodyear tire test begins today at Charlotte Motor Speedway in preparation of racing on the road course next season.

Martin Truex Jr., Kurt Busch, Jamie McMurray and Xfinity Series driver Daniel Hemric are the drivers slated to participate. They will tackle the 18-turn course on the standard road course tire used at Watkins Glen as Greg Stucker, director of race tire sales for Goodyear, says the Charlotte road course matches up similar to the Glen because of the fast speeds.
Below: Take a lap of the Charlotte "roval" with A.J. Allmendinger:




"You look at it as a road course. We've got one fast road course on the circuit and that's Watkins Glen," Stucker said. "We think we have a pretty good package there; obviously we know what road course requirements are from a construction perspective. That's where we'll start and then just depending on how much the chicanes slow the cars down then we'll have some options to look at, some softer combinations.

"And we'll see if maybe we can go a little bit softer and add some grip because the infield portion, there's some pretty tight and slow corners – predicting speeds in the 35 mile-per-hour range. So, it's going to be some pretty tight bits inside [there]. We want to make sure we have enough grip to handle those as well."

Consisting of a firmer compound, this tire is run at all NASCAR road courses. Any changes regarding grip, which is the area Stucker repeatedly mentioned as something they will be working on, will depend on the data Goodyear gathers through tire temperatures, speeds and driver feedback.
Splitting the test into two days allows Goodyear and NASCAR to work through different agendas.
"The first part is going to be sorting through the backstretch chicane, there's about three different options to look at," Stucker said. "The morning of the first day is going to be looking at those three different configurations between NASCAR and the racetrack, trying to figure out what's the best option.

"That'll take a little bit of time and then we'll go through our short runs probably in the afternoon. Then as standard on the second day we'll go through our longer runs and kind of see how we look under those conditions."

When NASCAR visits Charlotte next fall it will be the first time a road course has been featured in the playoffs.