GOODYEAR TIRE NOTES
NASCAR Cup Series — Race No. 35 — 500 laps / 263 miles Martinsville Speedway (0.526-mile oval) — Martinsville, Va.
Fast Facts for October 28-29, 2023
Tire: Goodyear Eagle 18-inch Short Track Radials
Set limits: Cup:
1 set for practice, 1 set for qualifying and 9 sets for the race
(8 race sets plus 1 set transferred from qualifying)
Tire Codes: Left-side — D-5234; Right-side — D-5236
Tire Circumference:
Left-side — 2,249 mm (88.54 in.);
Right-side — 2,278 mm (89.69 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation:
Left Front — 10 psi; Left Rear — 12 psi;
Right Front — 22 psi; Right Rear — 22 psi
Storyline — Key to Martinsville is keeping cool while retaining heat: Being a short track with relatively long straightaways, very little banking and tight corners, Martinsville Speedway traditionally produces close racing, a lot of contact on the track and hot tempers. While it behooves one to keep a cool head, maintaining heat in the tires is the goal for Goodyear this weekend. Cup teams will have a new tire set-up at Martinsville, designed with a thicker gage — or tread thickness — and tested at Richmond Raceway in August. The Next Gen car doesn‘t generate as much tire heat as the previous generation car. The 18-inch tire is wider, has a bigger footprint, can carry more load, dissipates more heat and runs on an aluminum wheel instead of steel, so it‘s something Goodyear has been thinking about and developing.
“Normally heat can be the enemy of the tire, but at the same time we want to put enough heat into the tire so it works at an optimum level,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear‘s director of racing. “One way to affect that is increase the tread gage. We got a lot of positive feedback on that during testing at Richmond earlier this year. This tire fires off quickly, is quite a bit more forgiving and seems to open the tuning window for the teams. The extra gage will build heat quicker and hold heat more over the course of a run, which is good for the times of year we typically race at Martinsville. It‘s a pretty subtle change, but it has a lot of potential for not only Martinsville, but all of the short tracks. We‘ve learned a lot about Martinsville and it’s concrete corners over the years and we‘re learning more about the Next Gen car and what it wants.”
Notes — New Cup tire set-up for Martinsville: Being on 18-inch bead diameter tires, NASCAR Cup Series teams will run a different tire set-up than those in the Xfinity Series at Martinsville this week . . . this is a brand new combination of left- and right-side tires, with a thicker gage (tread thickness) than what was run at this track in April . . . with this 18-inch tire, and its lower profile sidewall, NASCAR Cup cars do not run inner liners in any of their tires.
Wet Weather Tires — Goodyear bringing wet weather tires to Martinsville: Goodyear will bring its 18-inch wet weather radial tires to Martinsville for the NASCAR Cup cars, should NASCAR determine that conditions warrant . . . Cup teams will have a maximum of four sets of wet weather tires for the event . . . Goodyear originally tested its 18-inch bead diameter wet weather tire at Martinsville in June 2022, in order to determine the feasibility of running in wet conditions on ovals . . . Kyle Busch, Austin Cindric and Tyler Reddick participated in that Martinsville test . . . NASCAR Cup teams last ran a wet weather tire in competition at the Chicago street course in July, and last ran it on a short track in the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro in May . . . in addition to the obvious difference of a tread pattern versus Goodyear‘s dry weather “slick” tires, the “Goodyear” and “Eagle” lettering on the sidewalls of the wet weather tires is white, not the standard yellow.
NASCAR Xfinity Series — Race No. 32 — 250 laps / 131.5 miles Martinsville Speedway (0.526-mile oval) — Martinsville, Va.
Fast Facts for October 27-28, 2023
Tire: Goodyear Eagle 15-inch Short Track Radials
Set limits: Xfinity: 5 sets for the event
Tire Codes: Left-side — D-6118; Right-side — D-6120
Tire Circumference:
Left-side — 2,218 mm (87.32 in.);
Right-side — 2,244 mm (88.35 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation:
Left Front — 10 psi; Left Rear — 10 psi;
Right Front — 23 psi; Right Rear — 22 psi
Notes —Fourth straight Martinsville race on this tire set-up for Xfinity teams: Being on 15-inch bead diameter tires, NASCAR Xfinity Series teams will run a different tire set-up than those in the Cup Series at Martinsville this weekend . . . Xfinity teams have run this tire set-up at Martinsville since the beginning of 2022 . . . these two Goodyear tire codes are unique to Martinsville . . . as on most NASCAR ovals one mile or less in length, Xfinity teams will not run liners in their tires at Martinsville.
Wet Weather Tires — Goodyear bringing wet weather tires to Martinsville: Goodyear will bring its 15-inch wet weather radial tires to Martinsville for NASCAR Xfinity Series teams, should NASCAR determine that conditions warrant . . . Xfinity teams will have a maximum of three sets of wet weather tires for the event . . . Goodyear tested its 15-inch bead diameter wet weather tires on Cup cars at both Martinsville (April 2021) and Richmond (May 2021) in order to determine the feasibility of running in wet conditions on ovals . . . Goodyear followed up those tests with a wet weather test with Xfinity cars at Martinsville last June. . . teams participating in the June 2022 Xfinity test were the No. 19 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, No. 21 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet and No. 98 Stewart-Haas Racing Ford . . . Xfinity last ran in wet conditions on the Indianapolis road course in August, and has never run on a race weekend in the wet on a short track . . . in addition to the obvious difference of a tread pattern versus Goodyear‘s dry weather “slick” tires, the “Goodyear” and “Eagle” lettering on the sidewalls of the wet weather tires is white, not the standard yellow.
— Goodyear Racing —
