NASCAR Cup Series — Race No. 8 — 500 laps / 263 miles
NASCAR Xfinity Series — Race No. 7 — 250 laps / 131.5 miles
Martinsville Speedway (0.526-mile oval) — Martinsville, Va.
Fast Facts for April 9-10, 2021
Tire: Goodyear Eagle Short Track Radials
Set limits:
Cup: 9 sets for the race;
Xfinity: 4 sets for the race
Tire Codes:
Left-side — D-4948;
Right-side — D-4950
Tire Circumference:
Left-side — 2,221 mm (87.44 in.);
Right-side — 2,250 mm (88.58 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation:
Left Front — 10 psi; Left Rear — 10 psi;
Right Front — 23 psi; Right Rear — 22 psi
Storyline — NASCAR in midst of run on short tracks, but Martinsville is one of a kind: While the NASCAR Cup cars are on a run of three straight short track races, each one is unique, including this week‘s stop at Martinsville Speedway. Teams face asphalt straightaways and concrete corners on Martinsville‘s relatively “flat” track. Goodyear designs its tread compounds to lay rubber on the concrete. Drivers move up the track after the bottom groove takes rubber, thus creating a second lane and more passing opportunities. The long straightaways, tight corners and lack of banking brings Goodyear‘s constructions into play, as they are designed to handle the hard braking into the turns and hard acceleration off.
“One of the major considerations we always look at for Martinsville is laying rubber in the concrete corners in varying weather conditions,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear‘s director of racing. “We adjusted the compounds for the 2020 races at the track, specifically to wear more and give the cars more grip, and we return this season with those same tires. We also updated our constructions on both the left- and right-side tires last season. Our constructions for Martinsville always have to take into account the fact that the cars are hard on the brakes entering the corners and hard on the gas exiting, so they have to be very robust.”
Notes — Cup, Xfinity return to Martinsville on established tire set-up: Teams in both the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity Series will run on the same tire set-up at Martinsville this weekend . . . this is the same combination of left- and right-side tires that the Cup cars ran twice and Xfinity cars ran last fall at Martinsville . . . this is the only track at which NASCAR teams will run either of these two Goodyear tire codes . . . as on most NASCAR ovals one mile or less in length, teams will not run inner liners in their tires at Martinsville.
— Goodyear Racing —