Kyle Larson said a long post he wrote on X about the reaction to Saturday night’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway was borne from frustration.
“It’s frustrating sometimes to see people in the industry, out of the industry, whatnot, have an opinion and want to blame… certain things, and none of us have any clue why a race or tire wears like it does or why cars handle bad in traffic,” Larson said. “It just gets annoying after a while.”
In the post, Larson wrote that NASCAR Cup Series races at Bristol have not produced many high tire wear races. The Hendrick Motorsports driver also noted that there is a good chance that drivers who lose track position from a speeding penalty will fall a lap down, and that passing at the half-mile track has always been tough.
All this tire wear talk about Bristol got me wondering… have we ever had a lot tire wear at Bristol besides the spring of 24? Eh, not much of any. Have we seen great races there? Absolutely. Have we seen duds where Kyle Busch leads 300+laps? Sure.
From what I remember in my…
— Kyle Larson (@KyleLarsonRacin) September 24, 2024
At the end of the post, Larson said expectations should be tempered because the field is driving spec cars. The post was made a few days after the race, by which point the opinions about the car, the tires, short track racing, and what makes a good race had been flowing through social media and SiriusXM NASCAR Radio from fans and the industry.
Larson won the Bass Pro Shops Night Race after sweeping the stages and leading 462 of 500 laps.
“I don’t ever get on social media anymore but I was just annoyed,” Larson told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “There are so many people in the industry that they see a car lead 462 laps and they automatically think it’s a terrible race. ‘Oh, there’s no tire wear. There’s no this. There’s no that.’ There’s never been tire wear at Bristol besides one race in the last 10 years. So, it’s like everybody forgets about the past.”
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There were eight lead changes Saturday night. The spring race at Bristol produced 54 lead changes and high tire wear for reasons still not fully understood. Larson believes the expectation was for Saturday night to be more of the same due to Goodyear bringing the same tire compound.
Larson, however, felt last weekend was more of a typical Bristol race, and not necessarily a bad one. According to the NASCAR loop data, there were 2,287 green flag passes in Saturday night’s race compared to the 3,589 in the spring.
“Everybody wants to blame Goodyear and everybody’s got the answers,” Larson continued. “Nobody has the answers. Goodyear doesn’t have the answer. NASCAR doesn’t have the answer about their car and why it doesn’t run good in traffic. Us — the drivers and the teams and engineers — we don’t have the answer either. So, I don’t know. It’s hard to have opinions, and hard when you don’t have the facts to back anything up.
“It’s just frustration. And it’s not like I’m defending our dominating run; I’m just in a way trying to defend our sport and defend Goodyear, because they get such a bad rap every week like they’re the problem of why our racing sucks. It’s not them.”
