NASCAR's Elton Sawyer 'baffled' by tire wear discrepancy amid fans' outrage over Bristol race

The lack of tire wear in Saturday's Bass Pro Shops Night Race at the Bristol Motor Speedway came as a surprise to NASCAR's senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer. The former driver said NASCAR was "baffled" by the difference in Saturday's race compared to the spring race at the 0.5-mile track.

Sawyer said in an interview with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday that NASCAR thought they had the right formula for their short track races in regards to tire wear. When Saturday's race played out with little to no tire fall-off, NASCAR was surprised.

“We’re baffled, to be perfectly honest," Sawyer said (via NBC Sports). "We felt like that we had a recipe there from the spring that gave us what we’re looking for in our short track racing, putting kind of the tire management back in the driver’s hands."

Despite both Bristol Cup Series races having the same tire compound, they produced contrasting results. In the spring race, there was immense tire wear that saw 54 lead changes. Saturday's race at the World's Fastest Half Mile had little tire wear that only saw eight lead changes. NASCAR decided to bring the same tire compound from the spring race to Saturday's race following a Goodyear tire test at BMS in July.

The lack of tire wear made it difficult to pass in the Round of 16 cut-off race, which left fans outraged as they were hoping for more action in the 500-lap event.

Sawyer said there was a lot of optimism with the tire compound ahead of Saturday's race, especially after recent races at Richmond and Watkins Glen produced great tire wear results. He said:

“We’ve seen some great racing throughout the year. Richmond comes to mind. Watkins Glen, just a week ago with great tire fall-off. The anticipation, as we rolled into Bristol, was that we would see something very similar. Obviously, we didn’t see that as the weekend started to unfold.”

Sawyer believes the key difference in the two races was that the Bristol track didn't rubber in during the spring race, but did so in the fall, therefore allowing the tires in the fall race to last longer. He added:

“What we didn’t have is tire wear. We’ll dive into that with our meetings today with our folks at Goodyear to see what maybe they have been able to come up with over the last couple of days in their meetings."

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Kyle Larson put on a historic performance at Bristol on Saturday

While Saturday's Bass Pro Shops Night Race at the Bristol Motor Speedway sparked frustrations from race fans, it was a great night for Kyle Larson. The 2021 NASCAR Cup Series champion led 462 of 500 laps en route to his fifth victory of 2024. It was the most laps led at BMS since Cale Yarborough in 1977, who led 495 of 500 laps.

The #5 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet driver's victory earned him a spot in the upcoming Round of 12 of the playoffs. Bristol marked the end of the Round of 16, which saw champion drivers Brad Keselowski and Martin Truex Jr. get eliminated, as well as youngsters Ty Gibbs and Harrison Burton.