Dale Earnhardt Jr. confirmed assist for Chris Gabehart, who had a powerful response to a NASCAR insider’s ideas on having choice tires at Martinsville. After the race, Jeff Gluck of The Athletic spoke on The Teardown podcast about how having choice tires would have made the race extra entertaining. This led to Gabehart responding to Gluck’s ideas.
“I believe, as a substitute, we must always make all of the automobiles 100% equivalent and see if the drivers can overcome the pure legal guidelines of physics. I’ll wait,” Chris Gabehart wrote on X/Twitter. On Dale Jr. Obtain, Dale Earnhardt Jr. agreed with Gabehart’s assertion.
“He’s proper. The automobiles are all equivalent, and the drivers actually are sort of restricted on what they will do,” Earnhardt mentioned. “Even when your automobile’s off slightly bit, you simply decelerate, get to the curb down downshift and drive up off the underside. The man behind you simply actually has no strategy to arrange a move.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. talks extra in regards to the choice tires
“…I don’t assume bringing the choice tire or giving them a pair units of choice tires fixes it in any respect. Then we simply get to hear all day lengthy about who’s on what tire and who’s going to do that and who’s going to do this. It an’t going to matter s*** as a result of they’re all going to strategize and it’s all going to sort of be just about the identical ultimately. They’re all on the identical tire on the finish. We’re not going to ever have an choice tire race the place the race is ending, the place individuals are on totally different tires.
Forward of the Martinsville race, Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports activities revealed that the drivers would simply have one tire compound. Goodyear used the choice compound as the usual right-side tire, whereas the left facet of the tire shall be a softer compound.
“Martinsville is likely one of the most historic tracks now we have in NASCAR,” mentioned Stu Grant, Goodyear’s normal supervisor of world race tires, by way of Jayski.com. “Additionally it is our first true brief observe now we have on this yr’s schedule, so groups should navigate the tight, concrete corners, coming off the comparatively lengthy, asphalt straightaways. The Cup automobiles having to go 500 laps is all the time a problem, and the winner should mix velocity, set-up, and strong pit stops to get to victory lane.”
On3’s Nick Geddes contributed to this story.
