Tyler takes tyre-tragic Texas triumph

Tyler Reddick missed the NASCAR Cup Series playoffs’ Round of 12 by just two points. Had he made up those points, he would already be locked into the Round of 8 after winning at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday.

Reddick led the final fifty laps to secure his third career win and extend the streak of non-playoff drivers winning in the postseason to four. He is the first Richard Childress Racing driver to win thrice in a season since Kevin Harvick won four times in 2013.

However, Reddick’s win was overshadowed by a plethora of Goodyear tyre failures. By the end, excluding the two stage breaks, fourteen cautions were called, nearly all of which were for single-car accidents stemming from blown tyres. While Goodyear has regularly warned teams against running lower air pressures than recommended, they faced a barrage of criticism from fans and drivers alike for the situation.

“If your thinking that maybe NASCAR will look into someone else for tires, keep dreaming. GY pays them a fat check so they are allowed to gouge the teams each week,” tweeted Denny Hamlin.

“Goodyear is working with the teams on their setups and everything else to try to mitigate the problems that we’re certainly seeing,” commented NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller. “We’re all learning about the setups, the tyres. Goodyear is learning about the construction, the new wheel. It’s an unfortunate part of a learning process.

“The ones that didn’t have any problems admitted to being on the conservative side with all the things that are difficult on tyres. They make speed, but they’re difficult on tyres.”

Reddick recalled, “At the end of practice, we were one of a few that had some issues with the right-front tyre. So we knew we had some work to do, there were things we needed to change, go up on some air pressure, that sort of thing.

“It wasn’t like an unknown. Certainly with the way the practice is set up, you take a chance of not running enough laps, if you’re working on your car a lot, to really get a read on if you’re too low on air pressure or too aggressive on one thing or another. In our case, we ran enough laps, were able to see that we had been too aggressive on our right-front tyre. So we made some adjustments going into the race, thankfully.”

Other concerns surrounded the Next Gen car’s safety after Cody Ware‘s crash on lap 169 shot him into the pit wall and resulted in a lengthy stay at the infield care centre before being released, continuing an increasing wave of concerns in recent weeks, and an incident between Hamlin and William Byron in which the latter spun Hamlin under caution. The caution arose after Martin Truex Jr. spun but Byron was not penalised for the contact, which NASCAR conceded they had been distracted by the Truex wreck. Nevertheless, the sanctioning body intends to investigate the matter.

“The cameras and the monitors that we’ve got, we dedicate them mostly to officiating, seeing our safety vehicles, how to dispatch them, all that,” commented Miller. “By the time we put all those cameras up, we don’t have room for all of the in-car cameras to be monitored.

“If we would have had immediate access to the #24 [Byron] in-car camera, that would have helped us a lot with being able to find that quickly. That’s definitely one of the things that we’re looking at.”

Race results

Finish	Start	Number	Driver	Team	Manufacturer	Laps	Status
1	4	8	Tyler Reddick	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	334	Running
2	2	22	Joey Logano	Team Penske	Ford	334	Running
3	31	31	Justin Haley	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	334	Running
4	14	12	Ryan Blaney	Team Penske	Ford	334	Running
5	30	14	Chase Briscoe	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	334	Running
6	27	43	Erik Jones	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	Running
7	3	24	William Byron	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	Running
8	1	6	Brad Keselowski	RFK Racing	Chevrolet	334	Running
9	9	5	Kyle Larson	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	Running
10	8	11	Denny Hamlin	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	334	Running
11	5	34	Michael McDowell	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	334	Running
12	10	99	Daniel Suárez	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	334	Running
13	12	1	Ross Chastain	Trackhouse Racing Team	Chevrolet	334	Running
14	29	7	Corey LaJoie	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	Running
15	11	2	Austin Cindric	Team Penske	Ford	334	Running
16	32	42	Ty Dillon	Petty GMS Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	Running
17	7	3	Austin Dillon	Richard Childress Racing	Chevrolet	334	Running
18	20	21	Harrison Burton	Wood Brothers Racing	Ford	334	Running
19	23	4	Kevin Harvick	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	334	Running
20	16	23	Ty Gibbs*	23XI Racing	Toyota	334	Running
21	26	16	Noah Gragson*	Kaulig Racing	Chevrolet	334	Running
22	35	77	Landon Cassill*	Spire Motorsports	Chevrolet	334	Running
23	33	15	Garrett Smithley*	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	334	Running
24	25	10	Aric Almirola	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	334	Running
25	19	45	Bubba Wallace^	23XI Racing	Toyota	334	Running
26	34	78	B.J. McLeod*	Live Fast Motorsports	Ford	333	Running
27	21	47	Ricky Stenhouse Jr.	JTG Daugherty Racing	Chevrolet	333	Running
28	28	38	Todd Gilliland	Front Row Motorsports	Ford	333	Running
29	17	48	Alex Bowman	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	329	Running
30	13	17	Chris Buescher	RFK Racing	Ford	270	Accident
31	15	19	Martin Truex Jr.	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	267	Accident
32	6	9	Chase Elliott	Hendrick Motorsports	Chevrolet	184	Accident
33	36	51	Cody Ware	Rick Ware Racing	Ford	166	Accident
34	22	20	Christopher Bell	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	136	DVP
35	24	41	Cole Custer	Stewart-Haas Racing	Ford	77	Accident
36	18	18	Kyle Busch	Joe Gibbs Racing	Toyota	48	Accident

Bold – Currently in playoffs
^ – Currently in owner playoffs
Italics – Competing for Rookie of the Year
* – Ineligible for points