Why is Everyone Talking About Tire Compounds?
What’s Happening? Between the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing, the Charter Agreement, and driver penalties, tire compounds found their way into the…
Menu
2024 was one of the most memorable years in recent NASCAR history. The stories, both off and on track, will be remembered for years to come, as their impacts on the sport will ripple into the future. Here are five storylines from the 2024 season that fans will be talking about for years to come.
It’s a bit of low-hanging fruit, but the finish of the spring Atlanta race really set the tone for the season. Since they’ve switched to their superspeedway/intermediate hybrid track style of racing at Atlanta, some fans find the product underwhelming. However, this year‘s finish with Daniel Suarez, Kyle Busch, and Ryan Blaney blew expectations away. The three-wide nature of the matter was a treat to all and made ripples outside of the normal NASCAR stratosphere.
Atlanta was just the first amazing finish of the season. At Kansas, fans saw a finish in which Kyle Larson and Chris Buescher put up the closest finish in NASCAR history. That race also established Kansas as one of the great tracks in the sport right now.
But it wasn’t just close finishes that highlighted the great racing this season; it was solid racing from start to finish.
For example, take Homestead when Tyler Reddick sent it to turn three to pass Ryan Blaney for an upset win. What about Shane Van Gisbergen and Chris Buescher beating and banging around Watkins Glen on the final lap, with Buescher walking away with the victory over the road course veteran? Who can forget Darlington with Reddick, Buescher, and Brad Keselowski going head-to-head for multiple laps to try to figure out who was going to win the race?
For fans complaining of the quality of racing lately, it’s good to see racing as one of the most memorable things from this season.
What’s Happening? Between the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing, the Charter Agreement, and driver penalties, tire compounds found their way into the…
Those fans often complain about the racing of the Next Gen car. NASCAR introduced the Next Gen in 2022, and since then, fans have noticed a decrease in the quality of the short track and road course racing in NASCAR.
This year, NASCAR and Goodyear tackled this problem head-on after several changes to the Next Gen package on short tracks and road courses. NASCAR and Goodyear put together a much softer Option tire for these tracks.
This Option tire falls apart much quicker, allowing for more passing opportunities while better-emphasizing tire strategy. However, this all kicked off with a wonderful race at Bristol in which the tires couldn’t seem to stay together. Drivers who succeeded in that race were those who could navigate an old-school short track in conserving tires the best.
NASCAR even changed the road course tire, with that wonderful finish between Buescher and Shane Van Gisbergen resulting from a new tire at Watkins Glen. While it hasn’t fixed every problem with the Next Gen, perhaps tire changes represent NASCAR turning a corner and finding new ways to fix a car that has been tremendous on intermediate ovals.
What’s Happening? The 23XI Racing and Front Row Motorsports lawsuit will continue for some time. However, many developments will occur along…
The 2024 season started and ended with talks of charters. However, by the end of the year, most teams had already signed the new NASCAR charter agreement. This Agreement was signed by 13 of 15 teams, those two holdouts are 23XI Racing in Front Row Motorsports.
Both teams held out on signing the new agreement and, in October, sued NASCAR on antitrust grounds and filed a preliminary injunction to get their charters for the duration of the lawsuit. The two teams are still attempting to get their charters, but the court has ruled that they will not as of right now.
During all this drama, both in the garage and courtroom, charters sparked a new type of rumor in the NASCAR world. Rather than the traditional Silly Season questions of who is going where, fans are asking questions like “Who will buy a new charter?”
Charter Silly Season, with the closure of Stewart-Haas Racing, made headlines with teams placing bids for those charters. These teams included the teams that are currently suing NASCAR. Both 23XI and FRM walked away with one of the three available charters.
Fans will remember this season and future seasons for charter talks as charters continue to grow into a staple of modern NASCAR.
What’s Happening? The 2025 NASCAR Cup Series roster is slowly coming together. Many teams made major moves as early as May…
While SHR did not start the charter conversation this season, they surely added fuel to the fire. The team, formerly co-owned by Gene Haas and Tony Stewart, announced early in 2024 that they would close their operation after Phoenix.
This announcement started not only the aforementioned charter Silly Season but also a fire sale to see where the four SHR drivers would end up. These moves unseated one driver and expanded one team. Ultimately, all four drivers found a new home and then the NASCAR Cup Series.
However, the downfall of Stewart-Haas Racing will be studied for years to come by fans and drivers who plan to get involved in the ownership side of NASCAR. This team went from the hottest team in the sport to shattering completely in just a number of years; it is definitely something for future teams to worry about.
Playoff unrest slowly died off as we entered into 2024. The question leaving Phoenix in 2023 was whether Ryan Blaney was a deserving champion or not. At the same time, most fans let this conversation simmer as the season went on while Joey Logano continued to make his slow climb into the playoffs.
Logano, who statistically had one of the worst NASCAR championship seasons in 2024, of course, won the championship in Phoenix, sparking massive debate over the legitimacy of the NASCAR playoff system. For once, NASCAR picked up on this and has publicly stated that they are open to revising the system; however, they will not get rid of the playoffs.
Notably, Logano himself did not start this debate; rather, it was the Martinsville cutoff race, where fans saw two manufacturers technically manipulate the finish of a race to allow William Byron or Christopher Bell to make it into the Championship Four. The fire was small entering Phoenix; it began again with Logano’s win and has rumbled into the off-season
If NASCAR does change this format, fans will remember this season just as they remember 2003 and 2013 for changing the sport as a whole.
What do you think about all this? Let us know on Discord or X what your take is, and don’t forget you can also follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.
