HOMESTEAD, Florida — NASCAR sent a memo to Cup teams Saturday morning that they can purchase an extra set of tires for Sunday’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Cup teams now will be allowed 10 sets for the race plus the set they start on. Last year, teams were allowed 12 sets plus the set they started on.
There is no change for Xfinity teams. They’ll have five sets of tires plus the set they have at the start of today’s race.
The move comes as Cup title contenders raised concerns about the tire limit for this race.
Teams were allowed fewer tires in half of the playoff races this season compared to last year. NASCAR cut allotments for some races after examining tire usage by teams with Goodyear. NASCAR sought to have the number of sets available closer to what had been used in previous races.
Rodney Childers, crew chief for championship contender Kevin Harvick, said earlier this week that “I don’t feel like there’s enough tires. The last thing you want to do is run out of tires with 40 laps to go and not be able to do anything or race for a championship at the end.’'
He wasn’t alone in his concern earlier this week about the tire limit before Saturday’s change.
“Am I happy about it? Happy is definitely not a word I would use to describe it,’' Brad Keselowski said of the tire limit Thursday. “I’m not sure how those decisions get made, but I’m told that it’s by people a lot smarter than me. So I’m just going to go ahead and trust that they had a really, really good reason for it.’'
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