Flat tires leaving NASCAR drivers feeling deflated

Kyle Busch

Whether expected or unexpected, one problem that has shown itself early in the NASCAR Cup Series season has been that of the difficulty in getting a car with flat tires back to the pit area. The Next Gen car is very much different from its predecessor in that it sits lower, has a diffuser underneath it, and has larger wheels. Further, those larger wheels and tires with less sidewall do not allow for an inner liner as had been the case in years past.

As a result of all those conditions, drivers have been losing multiple laps due to the difficulty in moving the machines after spins that have resulted in flat tires. Further, some cars have suffered damage from the tow trucks themselves while being brought back to the attention of their crews.

And while these issues have been seen in both of the first two races of the season, NASCAR has not issued any change in policy for when drivers and teams hit the track at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the third event of 2022.

In press conferences held prior to Sunday’s Pennzoil 400 at LVMS, drivers were asked about the troubles being brought on by flat tires. Former champions Kyle Busch and Joey Logano offered their thoughts to the assembled media.

“What’s the solution?” Logano asked rhetorically with a laugh. “I don’t know. My solution is to get a AAA truck to go out there and change your tires instead of towing the thing in and scraping the underbody off of it. My crutch fix is to go out there and put some kind of tire on it so you can get back to pit road and have your pit crew put your set back on so you can go.”

Busch believes the issue lies in the fundamental design of the car, which is markedly different from the Gen 6.

“Some guys have come across the idea of maybe raising the ride heights to get more ground clearance so that when the cars are in their natural state they will be higher so they’re not stuck on the blocks,” the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver said. “I think one of the other things, these cars want to be so low to the ground because the rear diffuser is so important to get it to the ground to create your rear downforce.”

One part on the new car he believes is the primary cause of the flat tire trouble is something he is not even sure the car needs at all.

“Years ago with the cars, we would be nose down and back up now we’re back down and nose up because we all chase downforce,” Busch continued. “In my opinion I don’t know that the diffuser is the proper way to go for our application of oval racing, but that’s what we’ve got.”

Logano remembered back to when he suffered a flat tire in Daytona that proved to be devastating to his chances because of the time spent getting his car back to the pits. And he believes this is a problem that needs an immediate solution, whatever that is.

Joey Logano

“Obviously, I got the bad end of that stick at Daytona with a car that wasn’t even crashed and got stuck three laps down,” the Team Penske Ford driver remembered. “That is probably the No. 1 thing we need to find a fix for and I don’t think it’s that simple of a fix. Obviously it’s not or we would have fixed it by now. In the meantime we need to look for crunches, to find something that will at least get us by until we find a reasonable fix that works for everybody.”

Logano says that perhaps a special safety crew team could put a temporary tire on that would allow the driver to return to his crew could be a solution.

“If you had a crew that was ready for it and had a gun and a set of tires and be able to change them quickly maybe I would have only lost one lap at Daytona and not three and not had the back bumper knocked off by a tow truck that couldn’t even push it through the grass.”

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Richard Allen has been covering NASCAR and other forms of motorsports since 2008.

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