Could a new tire spice up the racing action at Bristol Motor Speedway?
Goodyear Director of Racing for the Americas, Justin Fantozzi, has announced that a new tire combination for this weekends ‘Food City 500’ at Bristol for the NASCAR Cup Series.
In an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Fantozzi discussed how the last few events at The Last Great Colosseum have shown a rapid amount of tire fall-off. He noted, while leading to exciting racing, the sanctioning body and Goodyear want to tone down the severity of the tire wear. The struggle in creating a solution is navigating the unpredictable weather conditions that track has seen the past few years.
“We always start with the previous race, and we know that the chaos needs to be there,” Fantozzi said. “We just need to turn the foolishness down just a little bit. The real crux with Bristol has been the change between the weather on Saturday and Sunday.So, we wanted to take some of that temperature sensitivity out.”
Laying rubber down on the track has not been a new conversation in the garage area, especially since the debut of the Next-Gen car for the series back in 2022. This season, however, the talks have only amplified even further since NASCAR announced an increase in horsepower to 750 for short tracks and road courses. A sight that has Fantozzi noticing some changes in the overall racing product.
“I think 2026 been a very, very good start, and we’ve seen a majority of the differences within the racetracks that we’re going to see, whether it’s COTA or Phoenix or Las
Vegas,” Fantozzi said. “So, we can then apply those learnings to the back half of the season.”
In the interview, Fantozzi explained to the listeners the science behind what makes temperature on a concrete surface like Bristol very unique to determining what compound will produce a good racing product.
“We know that as the concrete warms and cools, it has different functions relative to grip. So how it’s going to grab and hold on,” Fantozzi added. “It’s no different than chewing bubble gum If your mouth is smoking hot, you know that gum is going to act differently than when you’re trying to chew it when it’s cold.”
Mike Bagley, for SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, pointed out the change of approach for the tire maker over the past few years, claiming of ‘softening’ up the tire. Fantozzi addresses that the terminology doesn’t tell the full tale.
“I think the easiest way to say is we’ve been asked to be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” Fantozzi said. ” ‘Soft’ isn’t necessarily the right term when you get down to it. We use that term because it’s easy to conceptualize, easy to grab hold of, but what you’re really looking for is the balance between grip and wear.”
Overall, after a successful test session back in November 2025 with cooler temperatures, Fantozzi feels his team is prepared for the action ahead.
“I feel very confident in what the engineers have prescribed for the event this weekend, taking care of that. We repeated that a couple weeks ago with the March OEM wheel force test. So, we’re rocking ready to go for this weekend.”
Time will tell if the new compound will produce race that is not only filled with excitement, but one that keeps wear to a reasonable level. The NASCAR Cup Series will battle at Bristol on Sunday, April 12 starting at 3:00 p.m. ET on FS1.
