Bristol didn’t go the way Hendrick Motorsports had hoped. Alex Bowman’s pit crew, newly shuffled and under pressure, botched a tire change, costing him 23.9 seconds— and a shot at the playoffs. Chaos didn’t stop there: Chase Elliott crashed, William Byron finished 12th, and Kyle Larson fell to 32nd. At the center of it all were Goodyear’s new softer right-side tires, meant to spice up the race but shredded just 25 laps in. With strategy and tires in disarray, questions loomed over what the race was even supposed to be, leaving one HMS member scrambling to explain it all. 

William Byron’s Crew Chief, Rudy Fugle, known for his strategic acumen, expressed his side in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio: “Tires are acting as planned. Whoever made that decision, I’m not in those conversations. We were told that was the plan. They wanted it to be that kind of a race. I don’t know that it’s 100% a Goodyear thing. If we were running the old right-side tire, we were going to be within a couple of degrees of that threshold on the tires wearing or not again, too. So I really think… somebody has to put the goal on the wall. What do we want the Bristol race to be… I don’t even know what the goal is.“

Clear goal or not, everyone was talking about Goodyear’s new softer right-side tires all weekend. They were supposed to wear faster– last fewer than 100 laps, putting the outcome of the race into the hands of drivers and teams as they managed their allotted sets. But Friday’s practice told a different story: with track temperatures hovering near 80 degrees, most drivers were able to run over 60 laps without significant wear. The real test came on Saturday night, though. 

Cooler conditions set in, creating the perfect storm for tire degradation— eerily similar to what had happened during the March 2024 Bristol race, which first brought extreme tire wear into focus. Back then, the teams were blindsided by extreme tire wear due to cooler track temperatures, forcing multiple unplanned pit stops and throwing race strategies into chaos.

When the green flag finally waved on Sunday, with the air at 71 degrees and the track surface at 89, the tires started cording almost immediately— within the first 20 laps. The sudden shift caught the garage completely off guard. Pole sitter AJ Allmendinger was the first to feel the impact, slipping out of the top five by lap 25. By the 40th lap, nearly the entire field had already pitted to deal with shredded tires. Chaos reigned throughout the Bass Pro Shops Night Race, which saw 36 lead changes: the third-most in Bristol history, and 14 caution periods, the most since 2020.

But why did we get here? 

NASCAR has long tried to keep Bristol Motor Speedway at the top of its game, hoping to capture the magic that made the track legendary in the mid-1990s. But inside the garage, many saw that the drama came less from pure competition and more from uncertainty around tire degradation. Fugle, reflecting as someone who’s followed Bristol as a fan for decades, put it into perspective:

“Are the fans wanting one of those two races, or are they wanting 1995? And if they’re wanting 1995, it wasn’t either one of those races in my opinion either. I was sitting in a grandstand as an 11-year-old kid watching the 1995, and it wasn’t like either of those races either. They were going all out… If you want 1995, it’s not going to come from a Goodyear tire. It’s going to come from cutting up the racetrack and redoing the concrete back to 1995, and then I don’t even know if the car can produce that kind of racing either, but that’s the first step.”

Bristol has undergone several modifications in its quest to revive the “old feel.” The track transitioned from its original asphalt surface with 22-degree banking to a concrete surface with progressive banking in 2007. In 2012, the upper groove was ground down to reduce the multi-lane racing that had emerged. Between 2021 and 2023, the track experimented with dirt racing before returning to concrete in 2024, and finally introducing new tire constructions aimed at inducing tire wear. But each modification brought its own set of challenges. 

Modern Cup cars are faster, heavier, and more sophisticated than the cars of the 1990s, making it nearly impossible to recreate the exact chaos of the past. But he also explained that although the direction for Bristol remains unclear following recent challenges, he anticipates the new right-side tire will deliver exciting action at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway and other Round of 12 tracks. 

Saturday’s race showed that even with careful planning, the balance between honoring tradition and accommodating today’s cars is delicate. But even then, tire wear wasn’t the only problem at Bristol.

Communication breakdown costs HMS in NASCAR playoffs

The Bristol Motor Speedway battle illustrated how every lap carried high stakes, and any small issue could derail a contender’s run. For Hendrick Motorsports‘ Alex Bowman, the Bass Pro Shops Night Race turned into a perfect storm of misfortune. Despite crossing the finish line in 8th, he fell 10 points short of advancing to the Round of 12, with a radio malfunction leaving him unaware of the tight points battle.

An X post by Jeff Gluck highlighted Bowman‘s struggle, explaining that a crippling radio failure left him disconnected from his team at critical moments. Post-race, Bowman shared with Dirty Mo Media podcast host Andrew Kurland, “My radio didn’t really work. I didn’t know we were close. Our guys did a good job calling the race. I wish we had a little more speed. I thought we got our car a little bit better.” Compounding the challenge, Bowman also struggled with tire management on worn rubber, which limited his restart aggression.

Even with the setbacks, Bowman praised his crew’s efforts, noting the improvements after a reshuffle following earlier playoff struggles. “Hats off to our whole Ally 48 team. They did a really good job throughout the course of the day, and trying to be better for a rough last two weeks. And I think we swung in the right direction, and we can continue to do that for the next when we have seven weeks left.” The Bristol experience now becomes a learning point for Bowman and HMS as they refocus on the remaining races.