Tire: Goodyear Eagle Speedway Radials
Set limits: Cup: 3 sets for practice, 1 set for qualifying and 8 sets for the race;
(7 race sets plus 1 set transferred from qualifying or practice);
Truck: 4 sets for the event
Tire Codes: Left-side — D-4798; Right-side — D-4796
Tire Circumference: Left-side — 2,227 mm (87.68 in.); Right-side — 2,251 mm (88.62 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front — 22 psi; Left Rear – 22 psi;
Right Front — 54 psi; Right Rear — 50 psi
Storyline – Goodyear aligns “smooth” tracks with tire set-up: There are several tracks on the NASCAR circuit that present a similar challenge – a relatively smooth track surface that does not wear tires. Goodyear has aligned several of these tracks – Texas, Kentucky and Michigan – with its tire set-up. At these tracks, Goodyear must formulate its tread compounds to aid in the wearing process. Consolidating to this same tire combination at all three of these tracks also gives teams the advantage of working from an established notebook.
“We have several tracks that we go to that have been resurfaced over the past handful of years, and the challenge that we face at Michigan and those others is that tires don’t wear much,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “With the goal of introducing more tire wear on these ‘smoother’ surfaces, we held a test at Texas last summer. We came out of that with some tread compounds that accomplish that and have brought this week’s tire set-up to Texas, Kentucky and Michigan this season. Tire wear is a good thing in racing because when a tire sheds rubber it dissipates heat and runs cooler and at a more optimum grip level. The other benefit to the teams when we run the same tire combination at multiple tracks is that they can work from notes they have built up over the course of those other races and understand how it works on these similar tracks.”
Notes – Cup, Truck teams to run Texas/Kentucky tire set-up at Michigan: Teams in both the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup and Gander Outdoors Truck Series will run the same tire set-up at Michigan this weekend . . . this is the same combination of left- and right-side tires that Cup teams ran at Michigan in June . . . for the Trucks, compared to what was run at Michigan last season, this right-side tire moves them from a multi-zone tread to a single-zone, while this left-side tire features both a construction update and compound change to introduce more wear . . . teams in both of these series have also run this same tire set-up at Texas and Kentucky earlier this season . . . . as on all NASCAR ovals greater than one mile in length, teams are required to run inner liners in all four tire positions at Michigan . . . air pressure in those inner liners should be 12-25 psi greater than that of the outer tire.
