NASCAR’s Senior VP of Competition, Elton Sawyer, joined The Dale Jr Download this week, where he shed some light on the tires that’ll be used for the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro.
First, Dale Earnhardt Jr. bent Sawyer’s ear regarding the tire-wear at Bristol Motor Speedway from earlier this season, and the NASCAR executive revealed they’re looking at all angles to ensure they an replicate it.
“I think it’s just part of the equation,” Sawyer said, regarding the temperature at Bristol. “That’s a data point with temperature, that was different. The other thing, as I said earlier, the difference was the track-treatment. PJ1 versus the resin. The reason, not to get off-topic, the reason the track-treatment was different is Bristol became a wet-weather track. You can’t run the PJ1 in wet-weather. It’d be way too slick. So you start putting all of that in the equation. Whether it’s track-temperature, whether it’s resin. You start laying that out to people that’s a lot smarter than me, from an engineering perspective, and trying to get to that place.
“If the testing at Wilkesboro, with the testing, that will be the option tire, if the testing, what we’ve done, and the results of those tests, then we’re going to see some things at the All-Star Race that we’re going to be really happy about. … They’re going to have to manage that option tire from lap one. It’ll be like, years ago, you go to Rockingham or Darlington.”
Alas, that was music to Earnhardt Jr.’s ears, as he loves a good tire-wear race. He believes it can really separate the top drivers from the pack throughout an afternoon.
“I love it,” the NASCAR Hall of Famer responded. “That’s the only kind of races I run in the late-model stock cars, where I know it’ll burn the tires off of it, where if you drive it like an idiot. … That was great.”
That’s the vibe NASCAR is looking to return to, and Sawyer recognizes that. He harkened back to the race earlier this season at Bristol, and let the world know NASCAR is doing all they can to make it happen.
“That’s what we saw at Bristol. You saw the veterans, [Martin] Truex [Jr.] and Brad [Keselowsk] and Denny [Hamlin] and even Ty Gibbs did a great job. He had a fast car, which you could say, ‘Hey, that’s not going to work for, you better start managing it.’ But I think to your point, that’s what we need to get to,” Sawyer added.
We’ll see how it all comes to fruition during the NASCAR All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro. Elton Sawyer and Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be watching with a keen focus on what goes down that afternoon.
The post Elton Sawyer fires up Dale Earnhardt Jr. with testing results, making North Wilkesboro All-Star Race a must see event appeared first on On3.
