Ricky Stenhouse Jr. details the chaotic nature of new Darlington NASCAR package, wild tire strategy

NASCAR Cup Series drivers from Denny Hamlin to Chase Briscoe to Ricky Stenhouse Jr. have predicted all-out chaos in Sunday’s race at Darlington Raceway. This will be the first race at Darlington to use the new short track package, which features 750-horsepower, a three-inch rear spoiler, and fewer diffuser strakes.

Tires will be a big story on the day, with it now being 18 years since the last repave at Darlington. Teams will be permitted 12 sets of Goodyear tires for their weekend allotment. The left-side tire was used at Darlington last season, while the right-side tire debuted this past September at Kansas Speedway.

Exactly how much tire falloff there will be is still the big question; Hamlin previously said he wouldn’t be surprised to see tire falloff in the four-second range or more. Stenhouse told Jeff Gluck of The Athletic on Thursday that the tire situation will make it difficult to nail down a specific strategy.

“We don’t have enough tires to stop three times in each stage, we will have enough tires if you stop twice in each first stage and two or three times in the last stage. That’s with no cautions,” Stenhouse said on the Gluckcast. “It seems like with Darlington you always get that random caution at like Lap 4 to 8 and if it falls in there, 70 percent of the cars will stay out and then 30 percent will pit. If you’re one of the last ones to stay out, you generally go a lap down. But if you pit, you use another set of tires.

“So, it’s that strategy of if you’re running around the 25th position, all you’re really worrying about is continuing to stay on the lead lap. That helps your finish when you get down to Stage 3. But at the same time, if you’re running out of tires, I don’t really know what you do.”

Darlington could be chaos

It’s hard to predict how it will all play out this Sunday at Darlington. The hype is there for the event, with Briscoe saying it could be their hardest test all season. It’ll all depend on the falloff, according to Stenhouse.

“Again, it will be determined on how much falloff we do have and how many cautions we end up having,” Stenhouse said. “I feel like sometimes when the car is really hard to drive, we’re a little more aware of that, and we end up having less cautions. So, I don’t really know how it goes. Sometimes I feel like when people are comfortable, you kind of let your guard down and that’s when mistakes happen.

“High tire wear, maybe you get some toe links here and there. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out. … I’m interested to see practice on Saturday to see how that goes and it’ll be a lot of fun. I’m interested in this week, for sure.”