CARS Tour tire dilemma reaches tipping point at Wake

CARS Late Model Stock Tour practice was delayed for an hour on Saturday at Wake County Speedway in Raleigh, North Carolina as the simmering tension over the current Hoosier ST2 tire allocation and consistency reached a bit of a boiling point.

A problem all season has been that when teams are assigned tires, they have received a variety of different codes and they each race drastically different from each other. This is what happened on Saturday morning as teams unloaded for a full day of practice, qualifying and racing.

One team sent the following message about the current issue:

“Bad codes, seven codes amongst 19 different cars. Six of us had a tire code that was dated as early as April. We put tires on and went slower and opposite balance vs 200 lap tires yesterday.”

There were teams threatening to load up and not race on Saturday night in the Drive for Puryear 125 if there wasn’t a solution.

“They came up with a solution to let the old codes swap tires with newer codes in the shed. Wouldn’t be surprised if this is the last week on STs but that’s just an opinion.”

Despite the tension, the moment was described as a ‘family coming together’ type of scenario where everyone in the CARS Tour, competitors and officials, put their figurative heads together on the frontstretch to reach the temporary solution.

A representative from every team, series director Kip Childress and a representative from MTP Tire sorted through their options together. Race day has since resumed on a modified schedule.

Read more: Complete CARS Tour coverage and archives

Three-time CARS Tour champion Bobby McCarty articulated the problem last week during a conversation about the state of the series in general.

“We don’t get the same serial number from week-to-week and we’re spending two grand to get a mystery set of tires and are doing their R&D and that’s not right,” McCarty said. “I tried my hardest at Hickory for when we came to Ace, to get back on the F45. I made a big fuss in the drivers meeting and I got told they’d consider it but we’re back on the ST2s (at Ace) and I had five people tell me they had a bad set, bolted on their practice set and went two-tenths slower than on their 80 lap scuffs without changing a thing on the car.

“We’re spending 12 grand just to come here and it’s a lottery once we bolt on tires that might go to crap. And then I have to be the one making phone calls on Sundays about what went wrong, why we weren’t good, because they don’t understand the process.

“Then the sponsor comes away from that phone call and says I’m probably just wasting their money, and that it was our car, and not the bad set of tires we keep getting. Like, I think I should take all of our sponsors and just tell them to call Hoosier because I’m tired of having the same conversation week after week.

“There were no issues with the F45 tires, and it’s crazy because we went from a tire shortage to there’s a whole building full of F45s, so I don’t know what’s going to happen but I know there’s a building full of F45s to race on.”

Ronnie Bassett Jr., and his dad, a successful champion racer in his own right have made the same arguments.

“I mean, I feel like my solution is to go back to the F45, just to be frank and honest with you,” Bassett said. “I mean, that type of racing was always really fun to me.

“They say they’re making progress but we are going to put these stickers on right here, and I just don’t know what I’m going to have and I just cringe every time we put a set on.”

All the teams have made clear that they’re not mad at the series but that the current perceived randomness of the ST2 is just no longer acceptable.

Lee Pulliam, owner of Lee Pulliam Performance and a four-time NASCAR national champion, outlined the stakes last week.

“This is frustrating as ever, really,” Pulliam said. “I think this is another thing that’s going into our car counts dropping but I think everyone wants to fix it, right? Like everybody wants to have a good thing and we got the same codes for (Ace)

“So, I think, you know, Hoosier is doing all they can this weekend CARS Tour is working really hard with them to get us on the same codes. So while there is an issue, if they can keep getting us on the same code, that’s all we can ask for right?”

Pulliam’s driver, Brenden Queen, shared that same line of general optimism mixed with frustration.

“I think it’s getting better, especially when everyone is on the same cod, but there’s still some work to do. I think everyone is starting to get a grip on it when we’re all on the same code.

“I think Hoosier is working to get better, and as a Hoosier Hero, I got in trouble a little bit because I had a moment at Orange County where I was mad because I gave up some points, and these races aren’t getting cheaper to run.

“I don’t have races to throw away and every night counts. So that’s just something I want everyone to understand. I’m working really hard to showcase myself right now and it’s just frustrating when something that isn’t in our control hurts our team.”

As usual, one of the more even-keeled takes came from veteran racer Brandon Pierce.

“I haven’t been as hard on the tires because I’ve enjoyed the racing it has produced but like most everyone has said, there needs to be more consistency,” Pierce sad. “I appreciate the time and effort they are pitting into that.

“I think we’re all on the same codes this weekend (last week at Ace) and I am huge fan of that that because that’s the fairest way to do it. If you’re not going to let us pick our tires, and we’re going to have different batches, then let’s all come here on the same batch so we don’t have to worry about it.”

But when there are this many combinations, like at Wake, that’s a big problem.

“It’s big when there’s not,” Pierce said. “It’s one thing to have a bad day because you run too much camber or too few PSI and pop a tire or a ball joint gets it, or whatever.

“There are a lot of things that we control as teams that often gets overlooked when it comes to tires. But to give an overall grade on the tire, I’ve enjoyed the racing but I have not enjoyed the inconsistency and I think that’s been a common opinion around the Tour.”

Kip Childress speaks

Update: The FloRacing broadcast of the race on Saturday began with CARS Tour executive director Kip Childress addressing the story of the day.

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“We came to the race track today and talked to several car owner, crew chiefs and a few drivers and there was some concerns about the different tire codes we had available to us for our race this weekend. Typically, we’ll show up to a race weekend and have a couple of different codes. Ideally, we would like to see everyone on the same code but because the way tires are manufactured, and the different amount in each batch, those numbers don’t always match up to what you need for any given race.

“That caught us off guard just a touch showing up here and seeing the different codes that we had. We had an impromptu drivers and crew chiefs meeting, car owners, and we heard their concerns about the situation and linked up with our partners at Hoosier and our ownership group, who are fully invested, in getting us to a solution we could run with today to make everyone feel like they were on the same playing field today.

“I know we have some conversations we need to have once we leave Wake County today, but at the very least, I feel like we have a good resolution to have a good race tonight for the fans here tonight at home.”

Could there be a conversation about getting off the ST2s?

“Definitely some dialogue between ourselves and Hoosier corporate and the distributors and tire dealers, our ownership group,” Childress said. “Definitely some conversations to be able to move forward. It’s a quick turnaround from Florence on Friday night, our next race, so things are going to have to happen quickly if there is going to be a change but I think, until we have the chance to have those conversations to get us to a clearer path, we have to hold off on talking what those paths may be.”

And as for the changes tonight?

“We asked everyone to think a little bit outside the box and don’t go the way that is normal, not just for this season but the history of time in racing,” Childress said. “The consensus was there was a small group of tires that had some concern about being competitive with the rest of the field.

“There were a handful of sets with our dealer here that was able to swap out those tires for the sets they had on hand. There is still a sense that it’s a random distribution of tires like we’ve done all years. Once we’ve put those teams on those sets of tires, there were teams that didn’t have any practice on those codes of tires, so what we did is we eliminated our first practice, made our second practice longer and we told everyone we wanted them to practice on their qualifying tires to tune their cars on that set of tires. So we felt like was to keep everyone on the same playing field, they all had to run at least 10 laps and they all did.

“By looking at the times, I think they all gave a spirited attempt at putting down good laps. Some were still trying to conserve a little bit because 10 laps is still 10 laps. But on this relatively newly paved quarter mile, I don’t think we’ll see significant tire wear, but we wanted to give everyone a chance to get practice time on these tires.”