BRISTOL, Tenn. — The NASCAR Cup Series drivers face some unknowns this weekend as they prepare for a pivotal playoff race at Bristol Motor Speedway. This prospect excites some drivers, but it also sparks some irritation among others.
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The center of it all is the brand-new tire setup. The drivers don't entirely know what to expect as they prepare for Saturday night's race.
"None of the teams have tested this tire, that I know of, so there has been no tire test," Denny Hamlin said in response to FanBuzz.
"We are all coming in here pretty cold, and so, I definitely think there is an opportunity to create comers and goers. People that nail the tire setup and those that didn't. I think there is a higher level of anticipation because of that."
According to Goodyear, the tire setup will feature the same left-side tires used in this season's spring race. The right-side tires are new and exclusive to this race. They are softer and should deliver more grip and wear.
Teams did not test these tires, nor did NASCAR and Goodyear hold wheelforce tests. Teams simply do not have any data about how these tires will perform.
"I feel like we could try a lot of unknowns earlier in the season, but I don't really understand putting a new tire in play in an elimination race," William Byron told FanBuzz on Friday. "I don't really get it, honestly. But, I mean, it's fine. If everything goes great and it's fine, it's no big deal.
"But if people are out there shredding tires or blowing tires, I mean, it's a little bit kind of unfair, don't you think? Like, you run all season with one thing and then come here and it's different. I don't know. But that doesn't matter to me. I'm going to race what's on the car, but I think it's a little weird."
This isn't the first Bristol race to feature a new tire, but it is one of the instances when teams had advance notice. Last season's spring race featured the opposite scenario as tires wore at an unexpected rate.The race produced a record 54 lead changes as teams wrestled between conserving their tires or pushing the pace.
Hamlin won while fellow veterans Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. finished in the top three.
This marked a stark difference from the two trips to Bristol Motor Speedway that followed. Kyle Larson won both while leading a combined 873 laps. This season's spring race, in particular, only had four lead changes.
"The spring race a couple years ago, you were really learning under fire there," Ryan Blaney told FanBuzz on Friday. "Like, 'Oh, man, I got to really take care of my stuff,' and it's a little bit different than practice so you have to adjust in the moment."
As it turns out, Blaney is one of the drivers who did not mind adapting to unexpected wear in the middle of a race. He said that it made him and his team better as competitors. Now, he joins Hamlin and some select other playoff drivers expressing a bit of excitement about Saturday night.
How much will these matter tomorrow night? No one actually knows. pic.twitter.com/jsat1B0BOR
— John Newby (@JohnNewby_) September 12, 2025
"I enjoy the unknowns to an extent," Blaney said. "I somewhat want to know what we're getting into, but at the end of the day, everyone's in the same boat. No one's run this tire before and it's what team can kind of plan around it differently through practice.
"And it is a little bit different. It's not like we go through this practice and those things aren't going to last 40 laps. It's not like, 'Well, let's dial some camber out of the right front.' You can't do that right? But I enjoy the unknowns. That's part of sports. It's part of racing and motorsports."
Chase Briscoe echoed this sentiment while enjoying a relatively stress-free weekend. Yes, he wants a win, but he has a secure spot in the Round of 12 after winning the Southern 500. At this point, he just gets to embrace whatever happens at Bristol.
"I like when it's kind of a clean slate. It's still the same Bristol, right, but you don't know what you're going to get until you get out there (in practice). And I feel like that kind of separates even the best teams, and from a driver standpoint, you just have to adapt and figure it out.
"It's kind of like going to a new racetrack in a sense. So yeah, I've always enjoyed whenever we do have a change. Plus, it kind of gives it where there's a little more disparity in the field. Like if you have the same tire every time you come, those same teams typically run really good at that place, and it kind of mixes it up."
Based on Friday's practice session, Byron could be the happiest driver heading into the night race. The drivers and teams did not see the expected tire wear during their 25-minute sessions. Justin Haley completed 75 laps on his tires without issue. Hamlin and Austin Cindric each completed more than 60 laps on their tires.
Of course, this could change based on the temperatures at the Tennessee track. Recent seasons have shown that even a few degrees can significantly affect how much tires wear in a race.
Even if the race ends up being the "standard Bristol," that doesn't mean it will be a cookie-cutter race. As Bubba Wallace says, the teams will still face plenty of unknowns. That's just the nature of the sport.
Sometimes, it's tires, sometimes it's something else entirely.
"There's a lot of unknowns that we deal with on a weekly basis," Wallace said. "Fans will ask you before you climb in the car for practice, 'Are you guys going to run good today?' I don't know. That's an unknown.
"You've got to figure it out. You hope everything goes your way. So I think it's just one of those things that is added to the list of something that we need to figure out if that problem occurs."
