BRISTOL, Tenn. — Cup Series teams exited Friday's practice session at Bristol Motor Speedway expecting a "standard" night race on Saturday. This did not happen as significant tire wear brought back memories of last season's spring race, as well as a little bit of chaos.
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"Chaos is probably a good word to start with," winning crew chief Adam Stevens said in response to a question from FanBuzz. "The craziest thing to me is after the practice we all had some wear, but not like what we saw today.
"I would have bet my house that it would have been a long-run normal Bristol, run through the stages no problem, and that was not the case, and it was apparent very early on that first run that we were going to have problems. I'm not saying it's not fun to run a race like that, but it would be a little bit more fun if you expected it, and after practice, I did not."
Goodyear brought its softest right side tire yet to Bristol for this Round of 16 elimination race, which created expectations for a high-wear race. Yet, Friday's practice session on a hot track did not produce the expected wear. Drivers could go 60-plus laps without concern.
This is not what happened on Saturday night. Drivers began voicing concerns about tire wear within the first 25 laps of the race. Austin Dillon, in particular, shouted "I think I got a right front going down" as Lap 30 approached. He kicked off a chain reaction as dozens of drivers began following him down pit road in the subsequent laps.
Here’s the 60’s tires after 27 laps😳 pic.twitter.com/X32NZ8cO9j
— RFK Racing (@RFKracing) September 13, 2025
"It was just so weird and hard to predict," William Byron said. "It was just chaotic. From around 10th on back, there were just people running into each other, and then you had differences in tires.
"If they were four laps different, you just couldn't make the corner and wrecks would happen everywhere."
Said race-winner Christopher Bell, "I had a couple weird moments inside the car that caught me off guard. So whenever the track is behaving normally and it's taking rubber, you can slide the car around, and it just feels different.
"I had a really big slip lap 1 or 2, and then a couple laps — lap 20, 30 into the run, I'm like, 'Man, I'm losing grip in a hurry here,' and I keyed up and I said, 'I think we might have tire issues,' and then I just saw the land mine of marbles up the racetrack, and that's all she wrote."
The tire issues forced both the teams and NASCAR to adapt on the fly. The sanctioning body had Goodyear prepare an extra set of tires for each team on the grid, which took each team to 12 total sets for the race.
The @GoodyearRacing crew is hard at work mounting an extra set of tires for the teams. pic.twitter.com/8oviA7qRtu
— John Newby (@JohnNewby_) September 14, 2025
Meanwhile, drivers had to back up their pace significantly so they could make it further in each run. Some drivers could achieve this with their setups, such as Ryan Blaney and Joey Logano. Others, such as Dillon and Denny Hamlin, just didn't have the right setup.
The NASCAR tracker provided perfect evidence of this fact. Each driver had a notation listing their fastest lap. No one posted their best lap after Lap 30. Pretty significant for a 500-lap event.
A perfect example of how this race has changed -- The NASCAR tracker lists which lap each driver posted their best lap. The latest among this group is Ryan Preece, who had his best time on Lap 30.
Tire wear completely changed how these guys raced. pic.twitter.com/k2jieAjsXC— John Newby (@JohnNewby_) September 14, 2025
What made the biggest difference in the tire wear? The answer depends on who you ask, but the temperature change is a common culprit.
According to Joe Gibbs Racing's Chris Gabehart, the track temperature was in triple digits during practice on Friday. The ambient temperature was in the 80s. Saturday's race, for comparison, took place with temperatures in the 70s.
Stevens actually pointed to the combination of the temperature and the new right-side tire.
"I do think that if we would have had the tire the previous Bristol right side, it would not have done it at that temperature," Stevens said. "But they're working hard to make the tires wear out. By golly, I think they hit it this time. That was shocking.
"God help us all because if we're going to see this every week, that's going to shorten the careers of some people."
So the tire wear chaos returned, but did drivers and teams enjoy this? After all, many drivers said on Friday that they liked having some unknowns at the track.
Well, some of these opinions remained after Saturday night's race, but the drivers lost a little bit of enthusiasm.
"Crazy race," Chase Briscoe said. "I didn't have that one on the bingo card going into tonight. I don't know if anyone did - truthfully. I don't know. It was wild. I don't know - I'm still processing what we just did."
Now that drivers have completed four Bristol races — two with significant tire wear and two where Kyle Larson dominated — do they have an idea how next season's races will play out?
"No," Larson bluntly said on pit road.
