David Yeazell-USA TODAY Sports

Richard Childress warned NASCAR about extreme tire wear before Food City 500 at Bristol

Originally posted on 5 GOATs | By Jonathan Howard | Last updated 3/17/24

Right now we are seeing teams having to adapt and change strategy in the Food City 500 because of tire fall-off. Richard Childress told NASCAR this morning that they were going to have issues with the rubber.

Through the first stage, there was a big lesson learned – racing up front is going to burn up tires and cause issues later. We have seen drivers come and go. Leaders are battling, swapping position for P1.

Tire conservation is going to be the name of the game moving forward. We are going to see drivers pacing themselves. And we might even see NASCAR pull out more tires for teams to use in this Food City 500.

Richard Childress was talking about it this morning with NASCAR.

“Went to the [NASCAR] trailer this morning and told them they were going to have a problem,” Childress said over the radio to Kyle Busch, via Dustin Long of NBC.

#NASCAR … Richard Childress on Kyle Busch's radio channel: "Went to the (NASCAR) trailer this morning and told them they were going to have a problem” with tires
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) March 17, 2024

Richard Childress was telling Kyle Busch that for a reason, and Busch has been tearing through his tires. He has a fast car capable of leading, but a spin to end Stage 1 will make that job a lot harder than it needed to be.

Busch completely blew off his right rear tire. Then, he drove his Chevy Camaro to pit road in reverse. With everyone slowly figuring things out, we are going to see strategies switch up. These drivers will have to conserve tires if they want to make it to the end.

Food City 400 tire chaos

It has been years since we’ve seen a race where tire management mattered as much as this race. Things started off today and the leaders, amazingly, didn’t pull away from the rest of the field. Things didn’t get strung out.

Almost as the teams and drivers were realizing it, fans were also realizing it – this track was destroying tires, not laying down rubber, and causing major issues for everyone on the track. The realization, we are in store for an epic race this afternoon.

Bristol has been home to great racing in the past. However, even The Last Great Colosseum has had issues with race quality in recent history. Today, we are seeing a return to an old-school kind of racing that is usually only seen in late model races nowadays.

Who will emerge in this peculiar situation? Will the veterans who have been through races like this before rise to the top or will a young gun figure it out quickly and get the best of the field? Richard Childress warned NASCAR, now we’re seeing the results.

This article first appeared on 5 GOATs and was syndicated with permission.

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