WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Five thoughts after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series playoff race at Watkins Glen International …
1. Taking Stock
Oh no! This guy isn’t talking about tires again, is he? Ughhhhhhh.
Listen, you’re forgiven if you see a discussion about tires and your eyes start to glaze over. In an entertainment-focused sport that thrives on drama and personalities, spending too much energy talking about giant pieces of rubber doesn’t seem like a great way to get people interested.
At the same time, the tires have become the single biggest focus in the Cup Series when it comes to the quality of racing. And, after the checkered flag flew on the 100th race for the Next Gen car on Sunday, the tires also seem like the last, best hope for improvement on road courses and short tracks.
But what’s frustrating about the tire talk is the lack of understanding about why they react the way they do. NASCAR has now reached the point where tire supplier Goodyear is on board with trying to make a softer tire compound that will wear quicker — thus creating more passing opportunities — but the degree to which it actually occurs continues to be somewhat of a guess.
Take Watkins Glen, for example. The primary racing storyline (aside from the playoffs) was about the dramatic tire falloff that was expected to shake up the racing at this classic upstate New York road course. Earlier this summer, Tyler Reddick appeared on Denny Hamlin’s “Actions Detrimental” podcast and teased a tire he had tested at the Glen which had four seconds of lap time dropoff over a 20-lap run. Austin Cindric, who also tested at the same time, said one of the tires he tried had six seconds of lap time difference.
Those expectations were then mildly reduced when a later test showed roughly three seconds of falloff, but drivers and teams were still bullish on what the tire would do for the racing entering this weekend. When the first practice session showed a difference of 2.5 seconds for some cars over a medium-length run, there was still plenty of hope.
“It’s like, ‘Whoa! All the way to the other end of the spectrum,’” Brad Keselowski said after practice. “The knob got cranked, and it’ll be interesting to see how it affects the race.”
But then, oddly, the tires’ impact never really materialized as expected. The track apparently rubbered in enough to not make much of a difference, and even cars that stayed out on much older tires were difficult to pass when they had clean air. Crew chiefs who opted for stage points in Stage 1 were caught off guard when their drivers were unable to make up much (if any) ground after they were shuffled back into the pack.
“It ended up being the same old Watkins Glen,” Christopher Bell said. “Pre-race, we all expected the same thing of tire wear being a huge factor and having to pit to put on tires and be able to drive up through the field — and it was the complete opposite.”
So what gives? Because there’s now such a large sample size, drivers can’t help but wonder if it’s the platform of the Next Gen car which limits their ability to pass by dirtying the air of the trailing car (“The hot, turbulent air is still overpowering,” Tyler Reddick said). Another driver, Ty Gibbs said he caught up to another driver from six seconds back on Sunday but was unable to get by once his car got stuck in the wake.
“Sometimes I’m like, ‘Is this car designed for us not to pass?’” Gibbs said. “Because it’s so hard to pass compared to the Xfinity car (which he drove on Saturday). I mean, you could cross over people and everything (in Xfinity), and this thing you can’t pass, and that’s frustrating as a driver.”
Now another unknown arrives Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway, which saw one of the most bizarre-yet-compelling races in recent history this spring. That was the race which had a shocking amount of tire wear — even though Goodyear said it brought the exact same tire as the previous race (which had little to none).
The prevailing theory at the time was cool spring temperatures must have made the difference, which made sense until another Goodyear test this summer on a hot Tennessee day when drivers reported the tires having similarly high wear.
Logically, none of it makes sense. So why is this happening? When asked this weekend, drivers largely shrugged in a your guess is as good as mine manner.
“You’re making great points,” Cindric said, wearing a bemused expression. “I’ve got nothing for you, man.”
2. What If?
Here are some alternate storylines we’d be talking about today had a few things unfolded differently.
• If there are no late cautions: Denny Hamlin likely finishes somewhere in the 30s and enters the Bristol cutoff race somewhere between 15-20 points out of a playoff spot. The panic meter for a championship-contending team would have been off the charts. Instead, crew chief Chris Gabehart was able to deploy a strategy that got Hamlin back onto the lead lap and allowed him to use a final fresh set of tires; Hamlin drove to 23rd and is only six points below the cut line, and heading to a track where “we can control our own destiny,” he said.
• If Ryan Blaney avoids the Lap 1 crash: There’s a high chance Blaney would be heading to Bristol as this round’s points leader and may have even locked himself into Round 2 on points with a top-10 finish. Instead, there are no guarantees Blaney advances past this round if he suffers further misfortune on Saturday night, and that incident will loom large if he crashes at Bristol.
• If Shane van Gisbergen doesn’t make a mistake on the last lap after being pressured by Chris Buescher: Though it was a heck of a finish and memorable victory for Buescher, van Gisbergen was a half-lap away from notching his second career Cup Series road course race in five career starts. It would have sent a clear message to the field as he prepares to go full-time Cup racing for Trackhouse in 2025, although one mistake doesn’t exactly diminish the respect for his skill level either way.
3. NASquirks
Kyle Larson recently declared he was a better all-around driver than Max Verstappen (which rings true from this view, for what it’s worth), so you wouldn’t think Larson would be someone who ever has much self-doubt.
But during an appearance on Corey LaJoie’s “Stacking Pennies” podcast last week, Larson said he indeed had periods of questioning himself and his abilities. That seemed surprising for a driver some consider to be the best racer on the planet, whose natural ability and raw speed seem abundant.
So we asked Larson on Saturday: Does he really have times where he doubts himself and, if so, what prompts it?
“I definitely do,” he said. “Lately, the last couple years, I’m fast in everything — but I crash so much. That was really my only goal this year, to just crash less. And I’m still on pace for normal (crash rate).
“That’s the stuff that gets to me. I’m working really hard to like not do that — and I still do it.”
Last week at Atlanta, Larson crashed in the playoff opener at Atlanta Motor Speedway and used up many of his bonus playoff points — putting him in an uncertain position for the rest of this round. And what bothered him about that wreck, he said, was “I’m not even trying hard and I crash.”
“Then there’s other weeks where I try too hard and I crash,” he added. “It’s like I’m just prone to crashing. So that weighs on me some.”
On the other hand, Larson can take a step back and see the wrecks as many others do: He has such an ability to put the car on edge and go fast that sometimes he inevitably steps over the line. But without that speed, he wouldn’t be as successful.
“I also try to peel it back and be like, ‘OK, well, I do crash a lot, but that aggression level probably puts me in position to win more (often) than not,’” he said.
4. Championship 4cast
In this space throughout the playoffs, we’re taking a look at the current power rankings for the Championship 4 and comparing them to our pre-playoff picks (Christopher Bell, Tyler Reddick, Kyle Larson and Ryan Blaney).
1. Bell (pre-playoffs: 1; last week: 1): It certainly wasn’t the day Bell expected on a road course, but he still escaped with a 14th-place finish after getting spun by Austin Dillon and heads to the Bristol elimination race as this round’s points leader.
2. Reddick (pre-playoffs: 2; last week: 3): Perhaps the series’ best current road racer, we never got to see what Reddick could really do after he sustained damage at the start of Stage 2.
3. Blaney (pre-playoffs: 4; last week: 2): Getting involved in a Lap 1 incident that had nothing to do with him (and barely seeming to get much damage before he was ruled out of the race, at that) had to be frustrating. But this team should still be able to survive Bristol and make another deep run.
4. Larson (pre-playoffs: 3; last week: 4): His margin to the cut line increased a bit and he’s now up 26 points heading to one of his best tracks. Still, there are no guarantees during what has been another hot-and-cold stretch for Larson (one top-10 finish in the last five races).
Honorable mention: Joey Logano, Chase Elliott, Austin Cindric, William Byron.
5. Best of the Rest
This section was created last year to highlight the top non-playoff performers during the final 10 races of the season. But this could have been the longest portion of the whole piece after Sunday, which was the first-ever NASCAR playoff race — in any of the top three series — that did not feature a single playoff driver among the top five finishers (per stats guru Seth Eggert).
Where do we even begin? A good place to start seems to be with Buescher, a vastly underrated driver who now has a road course victory on his resume and is now tied for the third-best average finish in the entire series this season — despite not getting a win that would have allowed him to make the playoffs.
Then there’s the Spire Motorsports trifecta of rookie Carson Hocevar (third), rookie Zane Smith (fifth) and Corey LaJoie (eighth). They not only got the team’s first triple top 10, but the trio has now accounted for 11 top-10 finishes this season — this for an organization that had only 10 top-10s in its 288 races of team history before this year.
And how about Ross Chastain? After barely missing the playoffs (and then shaving off his longtime beard), Chastain has continued to show speed and now has top-15 finishes in six of the last seven races (and has led laps in three straight). Strangely enough, Chastain is the driver who Buescher is tied with for third-best average finish this season; and neither of them are playoff drivers.
Finally, we can’t wrap this portion without once again recognizing the incredible talent that is van Gisbergen. After his Chicago win in 2023, there were all sorts of attempts to twist the logic about how he pulled it off. He knows street courses better than the field! He’s more experienced with wet weather! Australia Supercars drive like the Next Gen! All of that may be true, except SVG continues to show he’ll be a reliable threat on any type of road course — and in any series — after nearly winning again on Sunday.
(Top photo of Chris Buescher taking the checkered flag in Sunday’s race: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)
