All three NASCAR premier national series are in action this weekend, with the Cup Series and Gander Outdoors Truck Series at Pocono Raceway and the Xfinity Series will be at Iowa Speedway.
Although Pocono is 2 ½ times larger than last weekend’s race at New Hampshire’s “Magic Mile,” both tracks share similarities, including relatively little banking, and teams often use left-side air pressures as a tuning tool to gain grip as the cars transition from the corners to back on the throttle onto Pocono’s long straightaways.
And because Cup teams just raced at Pocono eight weeks ago on the same tire set-up and downforce package, there will not be any changes in the tires and teams should have plenty of data from the previous June 2 race at the Tricky Triangle.
“Pocono is always a challenge on both the teams and the tires,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “Being pretty flat with long, fast straightaways and three distinct corners, teams will try to gain grip however they can, including going below our recommended air pressures, most specifically on the left-side of the car.
“We integrated construction updates on both the left- and right-side tires for the June race, so since the Cup cars have already run at Pocono with this higher downforce package, they have a head start on what to expect with their set-ups this weekend.”
Cup cars will run the same combination of left- and right-side tires that they ran at Pocono in June. For the Trucks, these are two new Goodyear tire codes, featuring construction updates on both sides of the truck compared to what was run at Pocono in 2018. As on all NASCAR ovals greater than one mile in length, teams are required to run inner liners on all four tire positions at Pocono. Air pressure in those inner liners should be 12-25 psi greater than that of the outer tire.
Here’s the Cup and Truck tire info for the weekend.
Tire: Goodyear Eagle Speedway Radials
Set limits: Cup: 3 sets for practice, 1 set for qualifying and 7 sets for the race (6 race sets plus 1 set transferred from qualifying or practice); Truck: 4 sets for the event.
Tire Codes: Left-side — D-4870; Right-side – D-4876
Tire Circumference: Left-side — 2,227 mm (87.68 in.); Right-side — 2,241 mm (88.23 in.)
Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front — 18 psi; Left Rear — 18 psi; Right Front — 41 psi; Right Rear — 37 psi
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As for Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Iowa, this is the same tire set-up that the Xfinity cars previously ran at Iowa in June. The left-side tire code is the same that Xfinity teams ran at Phoenix in March.
To prepare for the 2019 season, Goodyear held a tire test with Christopher Bell, Cole Custer and Tyler Reddick at Iowa on April 16-17. Also, as on most NASCAR ovals one mile or less in length, teams will not run inner liners in their tires at Iowa.
Here’s the Xfinity tire info for the weekend.
Tire: Goodyear Eagle Speedway Radials
Set limits: 6 sets for the event
Tire Codes: Left-side — D-4864; Right-side – D-4884
Minimum Recommended Inflation: Left Front — 16 psi; Left Rear — 16 psi;
Right Front — 36 psi; Right Rear — 34 psi
