Goodyear Racing will bring a new tire to Watkins Glen International this weekend, one with an "extremely aggressive" falloff. This tire creates some unknowns as drivers enter the weekend unsure about the effectiveness of tried-and-true strategies.
"I really have no idea," William Byron said about how his team will approach Sunday's race, which continues the Round of 16.
NASCAR drivers implement two main strategies at road courses during the stage era. If they need points, they stay on track until the end of the stage and collect as many points as possible. They then pit during the break and restart further back in the field.
The other strategy focuses only on the race win. Drivers will pit within three laps of the stage end, giving up stage points in the process. However, they gain a significant amount of track position when other drivers make their stops. This puts them near the front of the pack for the final run to the checkered flag at a track where position is key.
Drivers who don't need points, such as AJ Allmendinger and Shane van Gisbergen, would use the strategy of pitting early to contend for the win. The same goes for drivers who were in must-win situations.
"Typically at Watkins Glen, a 40-point day is like max, so you're usually missing out on all the stage points to win the race," Byron said. "And that was with stages."
Adding a new tire to the mix will potentially disrupt these two strategies. Teams just don't know if they can stick with what has worked in the past.
If the tire delivers three seconds of falloff as Goodyear anticipates, the drivers will run the risk of burning through the rubber over the final two laps of each stage. This would then give the advantage to the drivers who scored stage points and stopped for tires during the break.
"In our ongoing efforts to introduce more fall-off, we tested at Watkins Glen in June and came out with a new tire that will accomplish that goal," said Greg Stucker, Goodyear's director of racing, in a statement. "Based on our test, and a subsequent WFT test with the manufacturers, we should see around three seconds of fall-off per lap over a run.
"That, of course, can mean more passing throughout the race. It's always tricky on road courses as drivers take advantage of a limited number of 'passing zones,' so the increased fall-off should lead to more comers and goers as some drivers manage their tires and gain on the field as the runs go on."
The Cup Series drivers will have an extended practice session to test these new tires and accumulate some data. The field will split into two groups on Saturday morning, and each group will have two, 20-minute sessions.
The practice session will give the teams a better idea about the falloff and the effectiveness of their old strategies. That doesn't mean this session will completely erase the unknowns.
"It's definitely at least spooked some people, for sure," Austin Cindric said in response to a question from AltDriver. "And I don't feel like everyone's...at least myself, I'm not 100% sure, like, what the level of falloff is that we're going to experience.
"It's not a high falloff racetrack. So is this falloff that's just a tire disintegrating from being used? Or is this driver-influenced? And is it wear-influenced? Is it heat-influenced?"