AVONDALE, Ariz. — NASCAR Cup Series practice at Phoenix Raceway started quietly, but this only lasted a few laps. Tire issues began quickly began disrupting the session.
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Chase Briscoe, a Championship 4 driver, was the first to experience a problem. He had a left-rear tire go down after completing half of a lap in practice. He stopped at the entrance of pit road before eventually making his way back to the garage.
Briscoe's issues did not end with the flat tire. He also had a vibration that sent him back to the garage and limited him to only 24 laps. He ended the session with the 19th-fastest lap time.
"Too low in the air, too much camber, just too aggressive, I guess," crew chief James Small said during a post-practice media session. "You know, you saw it with a number of cars out there, so I don't know if it's been resolved yet.
"We stopped running there. Had a little scare there at the end. We made a lot of changes through that session. We'll have to look at it more, break these tires down and see."
.@chasebriscoe carefully brings his No. 19 car to the garage for his team to assess the damage. pic.twitter.com/Wx4YchSfto
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 31, 2025
Small continued and said that he is not worried after Briscoe only completed 24 laps in the session. He said the pace "was fine" and that they had enough of a long run to see how the tires would react as the race progressed.
Other drivers with tire issues included AJ Allmendinger, Riley Herbst, Christopher Bell, Kyle Busch, and Daniel Suarez. Chase Elliott complained about a possible left rear tire going down, but he did not have the same level of problems as other drivers.
Herbst made hard contact with the outside SAFER barrier after his left-rear tire went down. Allmendinger wrecked after his second flat tire and had to go to a backup car for Sunday's Cup Series finale.
A Goodyear spokesperson told media members that the problem appeared to be teams being too aggressive with their air pressures.
Practice is halted at @phoenixraceway due to this incident involving @AJDinger. pic.twitter.com/WWqPMkIa9i
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 31, 2025
Small did not express concern about the tire issues while two other Championship 4 crew chiefs said they had entered the weekend expecting to see some tire issues. They just didn't envision this specific scenario.
"I think in this place, it's one of those that can be really tough when you get a tire that you've learned on a lot," Rudy Fugle, William Byron's crew chief, said. "You learn on it at Richmond, Loudon, then you come here, and it's hot, there's more load here than there is the other two places. There's definitely some things to learn.
"At the test, I think there were some right side failures. I think we were more concerned about those and what would happen in the left rears were kind of a surprise. But yeah, this is a track that's tough on tires for what we're trying to do to them, what we're trying to do with our situation to make the cars go faster."
Chris Gayle, Denny Hamlin's crew chief, indicated that he had played it safe during practice. He didn't want to have any tire issues in this all-important extended practice session. He could also have Goodyear look at the tires before he determined his level of aggressiveness for the championship race.
