RICHMOND, Va. — The way Sunday’s Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway ended may have overshadowed what was the biggest storyline entering the weekend.
For the first time in a points-paying race, NASCAR allowed teams to use multiple tire compounds – a harder “prime” tire and a softer “option” tire. While the prime tire is designed for long-run speed, the option tire is made for short-run success at the expense of more wear.
As teams got just two sets of option tires for the race compared to six prime sets, most drivers expected to use the limited sets at the end.
Although, a few experimented early – and for one driver in particular, it worked.
Starting Stage Two, Daniel Suárez and Michael McDowell were the first two drivers to try the options, which were denoted by red lettering. While McDowell essentially had to come from the rear of the field, Suárez restarted 16th – hungry for a stage win that would give him a playoff point.
That call worked to complete perfection. In just 13 laps, Suárez drove past Christopher Bell for the lead and managed the gap to reduce the falloff rate.
In the second stint of the stage, Bell got back ahead, but Suárez regained his lead on lap 186 and cruised to the all-important stage victory.
Suárez fell back through the field as the rest of the tires took reds to start the final stage, but again, the Trackhouse Racing team gambled late. In the closing laps, the leaders had one set of reds sitting but Suárez pitted for his final set with 40 to go. He drove back through the field and inside the top five, but a caution with two laps to go relegated him to 10th as he had to pit for primes.
“That was a fun race. These option tires, if NASCAR and the fans didn’t like it, I don’t know what they would like because they were amazing,” Suárez explained. “The strategy played a huge role in what everyone was doing; what we were doing and everyone’s different agenda. It was fun. I enjoyed it and the No. 99 Choice Privileges Chevy was fast. The guys did an amazing job with the strategy. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out at the end, but we gave it a shot and we ended up with a 10th-place finish
“It was fun. It was like Mario Kart with a star.”
McDowell followed a similar path throughout Stage Two and ended up inside the top 10. He ultimately finished the 400-lapper in 15th.
“Travis (Peterson, crew chief) made a great call in the beginning to take reds,” McDowell said. “We went from free pass to seventh. That changed our night and put us in contention.”
A handful of other drivers took their first set of reds a third of the way through Stage Two. At Richmond, teams typically have the option of splitting the final two stages into either halves or thirds.
Austin Cindric, Josh Berry, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Todd Gilliland and Zane Smith were among the group who took the option tires around lap 123. While they gained ground in the stage, similar to Suárez and McDowell, they were at a deficit to begin Stage Three.
A few more switched to reds for the final stint of Stage Two, including Brad Keselowski and Kyle Busch. Keselowski stretched the tires for more than 50 laps – longer than its expected life – and fell a lap down. Busch ultimately gained ground after an issue on pit road the previous time down.
Otherwise, it was a pretty standard strategy. As aforementioned, the leaders took their first set of reds to start Stage Three, and it seemed as if the final set wasn’t going to get used at all.
But as Austin Dillon led with two laps to go, Stenhouse wrecked in front of him with help from Ryan Preece to set up NASCAR Overtime. For the two-lap shootout, all the leaders who had a set of option tires remaining took them.
“I thought it was neat to see when everyone put them on you had various strategies through the race of who put them on and when,” Ryan Blaney, who finished 11th, said. “They would go and then they would kind of fall off a cliff, so I thought that was pretty neat how it reacted like that, so I’ll be curious to see what happens going forward.”
While Dillon won the race under controversy, the win of the night might’ve been the option tire – which drivers deemed an overall success.