WATKINS GLEN, N.Y. — Three NASCAR Cup Series teams traveled to Watkins Glen Int’l on Wednesday to commence a two-day Goodyear tire test.
Austin Cindric (Ford), Tyler Reddick (Toyota) and Daniel Suárez (Chevrolet) represented each of the three manufacturers, testing a series of six different compounds in an effort to improve the road course racing package. Teams began testing around 9 a.m. Wednesday and wrapped up an hour early, around 4 p.m. due to rain.
Three Xfinity Series drivers — Ryan Sieg (Ford), John Hunter Nemechek (Toyota) and Jesse Love (Chevrolet) — tested on Wednesday.
Of the six Cup tires tested, two have been used in the past, including the compound used at Sonoma (Calif.) Raceway last year. Teams completed seven-lap runs on each tire and will transition into 20-lap runs on Thursday.
“I do believe that tomorrow is going to be more productive with the longer runs,” Suárez said. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to do a couple short runs as well, but Goodyear wants to pick the two or three best tires of today and bring them for tomorrow and do long runs with us.”
The teams were also the first to get a look at the new curbing entering the bus stop, located at the end of the backstretch. Drivers wore ear accelerometers and mouthpiece censors to record data after they had previously said the curbs were too rough.
“There’s quite a big ramp, quite a high speed — the cars can still take it, but the fleshy body of water inside of the car struggles with that,” Cindric said. “It’s definitely way better inside the car. I think some minor tweaks to maybe some awareness of where the Armco barrier is, whether it’s adding a bit of a curb to push you away from the Armco or maybe even just changing the color of the wall.”
Outside the tire aspect, this week’s test in Upstate New York means a little extra. All three drivers have victories in 2024, meaning they’ll race for a championship.
And for the first time, Watkins Glen will host a playoff race. It’ll be the middle race of the Round of 16, sandwiched between Atlanta Motor Speedway and Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
It’s bound to shake up the complexion of the playoffs, so gaining experience is valuable. Reddick had a frustrating first day at The Glen, spinning twice — once in the carousel and once at the end of the bus stop.
“Track time is important, so I think that’s what’s made today frustrating for us,” Reddick said. “We’ve had a number of issues that have kept us off track, and when we’ve been on track, we’ve spun and not gotten full tire runs.
“I’m hoping tomorrow, we can learn more, our team can learn more. But the main point of this entire test is to try to help Goodyear figure out what the path is to put a tire together that isn’t going to be too soft or go too drastically one way or the other on balance but have some more fall-off. With that fall-off, it will create the racing that this place needs to have.”
Suárez said he spun once at the entry of the carousel. He’s hoping the re-addition of stage breaks will benefit Watkins Glen and other road courses.
“Last year, we didn’t have the stages either, so that doesn’t help the whole situation,” Suárez said. “It’s not easy to pass, and that’s the reality. With the previous car, you used to have two seconds of difference between the fastest car and the slowest car. Right now, you have less than a second, so it’s just important to take care of the little details, and I think that’s why it’s important to learn as much as we can and take advantage of this.”
Cindric said Goodyear expects to land on a tire Thursday that it will utilize for the September playoff weekend. That tire could be the answer to road courses outside of Watkins Glen.
“There’s quite a few development tires that we ran through today that weren’t expected to race. Some of them were fine, and some of them were like ‘absolutely not,’” Cindric said. “But that’s why we’re here. You can’t do any of that until you get on the race track. Some good ideas floating around … this track definitely challenges the road course tire a lot different than maybe a Chicago or COTA.
“Goodyear had their eyes on either the tire we ran at COTA or the tire that we ran at Sonoma, and just gathering data on that. For me, I probably don’t have an opinion one way or another, but it sounds like they’ll probably have a decision by tomorrow as to what that’ll be.”
Love crashed his Xfinity car early in the afternoon and a NASCAR spokesperson said the car was damaged enough to end his test early. All three Xfinity drivers had already departed the track and did not address the media.
The 2024 Go Bowling At The Glen is set for Sept. 15.