NASCAR (The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) is arguably the most exciting four-wheeled sport on the planet. Unlike Formula One, NASCAR vehicles are, essentially, off-the-peg, four-seater sedans that have been flipped for racing. And, of course, NASCAR races are held on circuits, not on the road, which means that the cars require bespoke tires.
On this page, we’re going to look at how race tires differ from road tires and the essential role they play in race conditions. First, let’s put this into some sort of context by looking at the criteria that require their usage.
NASCAR circuits come in four basic flavors: Short (1 mile or under), Intermediate Ovals (1.5 miles), Superspeedways (2 miles plus), and Road courses. Using the short Daytona 500 circuit (0.25 miles) as an example, each team is allocated fifteen sets of tires per race. That’s broken down as eight for qualifying and practice and seven for the race itself.
The tires themselves are a world apart from the tires we use in our day-to-day lives. If you invest in Nitto tires, for example, you’ll notice they have tread and the tire isn’t so wide as to require modified wheel arches. That’s just for starters as NASCAR tires differ in several ways:
- NASCAR tires are slicks (i.e., bald) to allow more contact with the road surface and they’re handmade with multiple layers of rubber.
- NASCAR tires are much wider too, with a width of up to 18 inches. Your average all-season Nitto tire is over 7 inches slimmer!
- And speaking of average tires, that all-season tire could be good for 85,000 miles. The typical NASCAR tire is good for about 100 miles. The reason for this is that NASCAR tires are designed to wear down to ensure the rubber is always fresh.
- NASCAR tire compounds are built to withstand incredibly high temperatures, so when they’re new, the rubber isn’t fully cured. Over-cured (or vulcanized) tires can become hard and lose their grip, so tires have to wear fast (see above) to prevent this from happening.
- For this reason, NASCAR drivers go through a lot of tires per race. Take the Daytona 500, for example, they can eat anything between 20 to 28 tires per race. And they’re not cheap either, each tire costs $500, the same as it would cost you to refit all the tires on your sedan.
- Speaking of costs, each team goes through about $20,000 of tires each race. The total cost for tires in the 2015 NASCAR Cup Series was a staggering $35 million, but it doesn’t cost the teams anything. That’s right, folks, Good Year, the official supplier to NASCAR leases their tires to the teams.
- After they’re worn out, NASCAR tires are recycled, that’s about 300,000 per season and the rubber is re-used elsewhere in a wide variety of commercial products.
When you think about all of that incredible technology that goes into a racing tire just to wind up as playground flooring, say, the mind boggles. To quantify the attention to detail that goes into a NASCAR tire, in the last race of 2023 at Fontana, California, Good Year is bringing in left and right-sided tires.
This means that each side is specifically tweaked to improve durability and grip. Bearing in mind that the racing cars only turn left on an oval circuit, these changes should see improved performance. And that means more fun for NASCAR fans!
In addition to being informative, hopefully, this article has inspired you to check out some NASCAR racing for yourself. You can watch on TV, of course, but nothing beats being there and sucking up the sights and sounds of a live race.
So, why not go online and check out the full 2023 season? Sure, you might have to do a bit of traveling to get to your local venue, but boy is it worth it!
