NASCAR Cup Series — Race No. 32 — 109 laps / 248.5 miles
Charlotte Motor Speedway (2.28-mile roval) — Concord, N.C..
Fast Facts for October 7-8, 2023
Tire: Goodyear Eagle 18-inch Road Course Radials
Set limits: Cup: 1 sets for practice, 1 set for qualifying and 8 sets for the race
(7 race sets plus 1 set transferred from qualifying)
Tire Codes: Left-front & Right-rear — D-5212; Right-front & Left-rear — D-5213
Tire Circumference: 2,275 mm (89.57 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front — 26 psi; Right Front — 28 psi;
Left Rear — 20 psi; Right Rear — 20 psi
Storyline — Cup Series wraps up 2023 road courses at Charlotte this weekend: The roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway is the sixth and final road course on the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series schedule. And while each of the courses have their own unique characteristics, there is one thing that has remained consistent — Goodyear‘s tire set-up. Cup teams will have run the same tire codes at each of the left-right courses this season, enabling them to build up their notebook on how this set-up performs. One other note on the tire set-up for the Charlotte roval is that it has Goodyear‘s highest minimum recommended air pressures for the front tires of all the road courses that NASCAR runs on. That is because of the use of the majority of the Charlotte oval on the course and the need to handle the loads in the high-banked corners. As an example, Goodyear recommends 28 psi on the right-front at Charlotte, compared to 22 psi on that same corner of the car at the series‘ other primarily left-turn course, Circuit of The Americas.
“We have settled in on a very successful road course tire set-up that we will race on the Charlotte roval this week,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear‘s director of racing. “After we tested at COTA earlier in the year, we consolidated all the road courses onto one set-up, resulting in a compound change for several courses, including Charlotte. Of course, running the same tire on all six road courses provides a benefit to the teams in that they have a lot of experience on it. Cup teams have already run more than a thousand miles on road and street courses this season leading into this weekend.”
Notes — Sixth Cup race this season on this road course tire set-up: Being on an 18-inch bead diameter tires, NASCAR Cup teams will run a different tire set-up than those in the Xfinity Series on the Charlotte roval this week . . . compared to what Cup teams ran at Charlotte last October, these two Goodyear tire codes feature a compound change to give the cars more grip and introduce more tire wear and fall-off in lap times over the course of a run . . . Cup teams have run this tire set-up in all five previous road/street course races this season . . . with this 18-inch tire, and its lower profile sidewall, NASCAR Cup cars will not run inner liners in any of their tires in 2023.
Wet Weather Tires — Goodyear brings white-lettered “wets” to Charlotte roval: Goodyear will bring its 18-inch wet weather radials to Charlotte for use by teams in the Cup Series, should NASCAR decide that conditions warrant . . . the tread pattern on this tire is based on Goodyear‘s Eagle Supercar 3 consumer tire . . . Cup teams will be allowed 6 sets of wet weather tires for the event . . . NASCAR Cup teams last ran a wet weather tire on a road (street) course at Chicago in July . . . 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. 29 — 67 laps / 152.8 miles
Charlotte Motor Speedway (2.28-mile roval) — Concord, N.C.
Fast Facts for October 7, 2023
Tire: Goodyear Eagle 15-inch Road Course Radials
Set limits: Xfinity: 5 sets for the event
Tire Code: D-6122 (same on all four tire positions)
Tire Circumference: 2,240 mm (88.19 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation:
Left Front — 20 psi; Right Front — 22 psi;
Left Rear — 17 psi; Right Rear — 17 psi
Notes — Xfinity teams on standard road course tire at Charlotte: 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 the Charlotte roval this week . . . these teams will run the same Goodyear tire code on all four tire positions . . . this tire debuted at COTA in 2022, and Xfinity teams have run it on all road courses over the last two seasons . . . as on all NASCAR road courses, teams will not run inner liners in their tires at the Charlotte roval.
Wet Weather Tires — White-lettered tires on hand: Goodyear will bring its 15-inch wet weather radials to the Charlotte roval for use by teams in the Xfinity Series, should NASCAR decide that conditions warrant . . . Xfinity teams will have 5 sets of wets available for their event, with a maximum of 4 sets for the race . . . this wet weather tire is the same one these teams had at all road courses the last two seasons . . . Xfinity last ran in wet conditions on a road course at Indianapolis in August . . . 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 —
