At some point during the Bristol race, every single driver probably thought they were done for, either not finishing the race or getting tangled up because the tires were wearing down at lightning speed. But once they got past stage 1, that initial annoyance of nothing going as planned flipped into pure fun because they had to adapt on the fly. Kevin Harvick mentioned that this whole tire wear saga might have been one of NASCAR’s lucky breaks, especially since short-track racing needed a jolt of excitement after the Next-Gen cars came into play. According to him, the race at Bristol Motor Speedway was a wild ride from start to finish.

Kevin Harvick agrees with Brad Keselowski

The thrill of the Bristol race was off the charts, and a big shoutout goes to Goodyear’s tire design, cooked up with NASCAR’s recipe. But according to Brad Keselowski, things might’ve pushed the limits a bit too far. Sure, the unpredictability added an extra excitement for both the drivers and the fans, but as per the RFK Racing team owner, things can be toned down to make it a bit more subtle for the drivers.

And even Harvick seemed to be on the same page as Keselowski, saying, “This is maybe as Brad Keselowski said, this might have been a 10 on the tire wear scale maybe we need to back it down to an eight. But I think you’d back it down probably to an eight just going there again knowing what to expect. So, my vote is we make the tires right now and we lock them in the shed at Bristol and we go back there for the fall because they’re going to automatically be better and I love the fact that the tires wear out.”

Harvick also pointed out how awesome it was that something as simple as tire performance stole the spotlight. Nobody was fussing over aero-push, aerodynamics, or those tricky short-track packages this time. What everyone—from the drivers to the crews—couldn’t stop talking about at Bristol was just trying to get a handle on their rides and dealing with those quick-to-wear tires.

But was the track temperature also messing with the tire wear? Larry McReynolds over at Fox and Todd Gordon from MRN chimed in to tackle that question.

Two seasoned analysts broke down how temperature played a part at Bristol 

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They pointed out something rather odd: the Bristol track didn’t take to rubber like it usually does as the race went on, which led to some pretty intense tire wear. Comparing the later stages of past races to now, with 25 laps to go, the difference was night and day. Before one would see a track that was nicely rubbered in, with the lower part of the track becoming darker, but this time, almost the whole track, except for the very top groove, was bare. To make matters more complicated, the track was littered with marbles and tire debris, showing that not much rubber was getting worked into the track surface.

Denny Hamlin threw another curveball on his podcast, suggesting that maybe it wasn’t just about the tire mix but also the track temperature at Bristol. He noted that the outdoor temp for the last couple of Bristol night races hovered around 70 degrees, and it’s been a minute—four years, to be exact—since they raced in Bristol during the spring when it’s cooler.

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And that’s what McReynolds and Gordon also talked about- how even though the overall weather and track temps were pretty much in line with previous races, there’s still a specific temp range that, if not hit, can really affect how well the track takes to rubber.

And then there was the big change-up from NASCAR, moving from PJ1 to resins for the first time this race weekend. The impact was clear right off the bat in how the tires wore down, which definitely calls for a deep dive into how this new material behaves.

We bet Kevin Harvick has some interesting insights on how all these factors mixed together to shake up the race.