Race Weekend Central

NASCAR Mailbox: Tires, Tires, Tires

On this weekend’s NASCAR Mailbox, tires seemed to be the theme at Martinsville Speedway with rain tires, tires catching on fire and tires left on the track.

This left some fans wondering why NASCAR didn’t finish the Craftsman Truck Series race and why the caution was not thrown sooner when Anthony Alfredo lost his tire on the track.

See also
Podcast: Michael Carey on SRX, NASCAR & More

Frontstretch‘s Jared Haas answers this week’s questions on NASCAR Mailbox on Frontstretch‘s YouTube channel. Find out the answers in the video below.

About the author

Jared Haas joined the Frontstretch staff in May 2020. A graduate of Cedarville University in December 2019, Jared has been a NASCAR fan since 2006. Jared has worked with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2023.

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John

First off, the 78 lost a WHEEL, not a TIRE. Imagine getting the bad PR for having tires fall off the car. Tire development for racing is so simple to do that Formula 1 found itself without a tire supplier a few years ago. The complaints of tire degradation are true…they aren’t like the last ones, they do have a larger tread area. Why? Perhaps since the sidewall got shorter, the width had to grow to support the forces due to cornering. This is the second year of an all new tire. Year 1 is all about getting the tire to last. Remember 1969 Talladega? Its pretty darn close out of the box. Changing the tires is at the direction of the sanctioning body. The tire supplier still can’t produce tires that wear out in 5 laps (like Indy F1 and the 6 car race) or be overloaded (remember the year one of this car when teams ran too low a tire pressure). In summary, this isn’t easy…there is limited history on this car and tire combination, and I wish sometime: anytime: someone would ask the experts instead of the ignorant.

DoninAjax

When the wheel diameter is changed the tire circumference has to be within a certain tolerance to maintain the accuracy of the speedometer, or the transmission gear has to be changed. The sidewall height will be a percentage of the tread width. On a 60 tire the sidewall is 60 percent of the tread width.

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