After two tire tests this year, Goodyear will bring a different tire combination for this weekend’s races at Texas Motor Speedway.
Cup and Xfinity teams will run the same tire. This is the first time teams in either series have run the left-side tires that will be used this weekend. The right-side tires were run at Michigan.
Compared to what was run at Texas in April, the left-side tire features a construction update to bring it in line with what is run at other speedways, and the right-side tire features a compound change to introduce more wear and be more heat resistant.
This tire combination came from a tire test Aug. 14-15 with Alex Bowman, Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon, Joey Logano and Martin Truex Jr.
“Texas has been a big priority for Goodyear this year after having held tests there in both January and August,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear director of racing. “When tracks go through a repave and reconfiguration, like Texas did for 2017, it’s important to keep up with the track surface and how it changes over those first several years. When we tested in August, with the goal of introducing more tire wear on the smooth surface, we decided upon the Michigan right-side tire for the Cup and Xfinity cars. Michigan also had a repave in the recent past and this tire has done a nice job of generating tire wear there, and will be a good fit for Texas.”
Goodyear also noted in its release that Texas Motor Speedway has been “preparing the track surface for the better part of two weeks by dragging tires to lay down rubber.” The track was repaved before the 2017 spring race. This will be the fourth Cup weekend since the repave.
Set limits: Cup: 3 sets for practice, 1 set for qualifying and 10 sets for race;
Xfinity: 7 sets for the event
Tire Codes: Left-side -- D-4798; Right-side -- D-4796
Tire Circumference: Left-side -- 2,227 mm (87.68 in.); Right-side – 2,251 mm (88.62 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front -- 22 psi; Left Rear -- 22 psi;
Right Front -- 52 psi; Right Rear -- 50 psi