May 7, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

Tire woes bite two champions at Darlington, Chase Elliott goes to backup car

In preparation for this weekend’s Goodyear 400, three top Cup drivers—Denny Hamlin, Kyle Larson and Kevin Harvick—were given the honor of testing tires at Darlington Raceway.

Given the abrasiveness of the 1.366-mile egg-shaped oval, it’s not surprising NASCAR’s most seasoned veterans were selected to evaluate the tires on March 15. Larson followed up with a confirmation test in the simulator a few weeks later.

Still, tire issues started early for a couple of Cup champions during first practice on Saturday--including Harvick.

Thirteen minutes into the Group A practice session, Harvick had a left rear tire go down. He damaged the No. 4 Ford’s diffuser coming back to the pits. Harvick missed qualifying as the team made repairs to the vehicle. He was eighth on the speed chart at the time and had completed 12 laps. Harvick will start from the rear on Sunday.

Last week’s Dover winner Chase Elliott wasn't as lucky. Elliott spun out of Turn 3, 15 laps into his practice run at Darlington. He was seventh-quick on the speed chart after 14 laps.

“I felt the left rear going down there about three-quarters of the way down the back,” Elliott said. “Recognized it, but couldn’t get slowed down in time. Hate that, but I don’t know what you do. Hopefully, it’s not a trend that continues tomorrow. It’s kind of a concerning thing. I saw the 4 (Kevin Harvick) had one in a similar manner. Fortunately, he was in a position where he could keep going.”

Austin Cindric led practice with a 23.399-second lap (167.271mph) on his second circuit around the track. Joey Logano was second quick (29.532-seconds) followed by Denny Hamlin, who leads the league among active drivers with four wins at the Lady in Black. 

“We feel like we learned a lot at the tire test, so that gives us confidence going back,” Hamlin said. “Like all season, our biggest thing is just eliminating mistakes—whether that’s me or on pit road or something happening with the car. It seems like every week has been something, but our speed has been good most weeks if we can just put everything together.”

Hamlin can’t afford many more races like last weekend’s collection of calamities at Dover Motor Speedway. Although his Camry was fast on Monday, the tire changer’s failure to attach the wheel resulted in a loss of track position—and ultimately the loss of crew members pending the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team’s appeal.

It’s understandable the team wouldn’t want to compete at one of Hamlin’s best tracks with key players on the sidelines. He won last year’s Southern 500, his 11th top-five and 15th top10 in 19 career starts. However, Hamlin experienced more problems during qualifying. 

"It was fine in one and two then something started locking up halfway down the back," Hamlin said. "I don't know. It's just so frustrating right now."

“We’re looking forward to this weekend,” Hamlin added. “Darlington has been a great track for us.”

Despite each team receiving 11 sets of Goodyear Speedway Radials for the 293-lap race, tire management will be at a premium as drivers are expected to lose two seconds of fall-off over a run.

Larson was ninth in practice on Saturday. He posted a fast lap of 29.775-seconds after six circuits. Larson has finished second in his last three visits to Darlington where he enjoys an average finish of 5.5. The defending Cup champion was grateful to participate in the tire test but experienced his share of challenges during the exercise—including a couple of wrecks in Turn 2. Fortunately, with the new car—which "didn’t feel way different" to the driver—he was able to continue his course.

“It's a difficult race track, easy to make mistakes, and if you can just limit those mistakes, you could have a good day,” Larson said. “All of my issues came off of turn two. I spun off of two on like lap five and backed it into the fence. And then on my last run of the day, I got loose over there as well and hit the wall. I think with them running the Truck race yesterday, the patch in turn two should hopefully be less slick. But that’s kind of where my issues came from.

“The transition into the new patch and then out of it is pretty rough, but that’s not really any different than what it was last year. Other than that, it’s pretty a straight-forward kind of Darlington. I just recommend people taking it easy for the first few laps (laughs). It caught me off guard when I spun that first time.”