The Next Gen NASCAR car’s altered tire wear is a direct result of its new, larger 18-inch aluminum wheels and low-profile tires, combined with changes to the car’s suspension geometry, aerodynamics, and overall setup requirements. These factors combined to create a car that provided much more initial grip but less “feel” for the drivers and was highly sensitive to temperature and setup.
Key changes influencing tire wear include:
- Wheel and Tire Design The shift from a traditional 15-inch steel wheel with a five-lug pattern to a new 18-inch aluminum wheel with a single center-locking lug nut forced the adoption of low-profile, wider tires. This provided more grip but less sidewall flex, reducing the “feel” drivers relied on to manage tire performance.
- Suspension and Handling Characteristics The Next Gen car is a spec car with restricted suspension shock travel, limiting how much teams can adjust their setups. This has, at times, led to teams running lower-than-suggested tire pressures in pursuit of speed, contributing to increased tire failures and wear issues in the car’s initial seasons. The car’s symmetrical design also lacks the side-force of previous generations, changing how it handles in traffic and puts load on the tires.
- Aerodynamics The car’s underbody diffuser and overall aero platform generate downforce differently than the previous Gen 6 car. This makes the car more sensitive to “dirty air” when following closely, which can also affect handling and the way tires interact with the track surface.
- Goodyear Compounds In response to the car’s characteristics, Goodyear has constantly worked to develop different tire compounds for different tracks, sometimes creating very soft tires intended to wear out quickly to promote passing and strategy. The tires are designed to wear down as part of their performance cycle, but achieving the optimal wear balance has been a continuous challenge, with performance varying greatly depending on track temperature and surface type.
Ultimately, the goal of these changes was to create more parity among teams and improve the quality of racing, but it has required a significant adjustment period for drivers, teams, and Goodyear to optimize the tire and car setup to work in harmony.
How the NASCAR Next Gen Changed Tire Wear
Tire wear in NASCAR Cup racing stopped being a simple story the moment the Next Gen car arrived. The sport did not just swap a body shape and call it progress. It moved load paths, changed suspension geometry, changed the wheel and tire package, and then asked teams to chase lap time inside a narrower setup window than they had with Gen 6. The wear you see now, from sudden fall off to ugly blisters to air loss drama, comes from that entire chain, not one magic “bad tire.”
The tire itself became a different tool
The Next Gen switch to an 18 inch wheel forced a lower profile tire and that changed how the tire carries load and manages heat. With less sidewall to flex, the tire has less “free suspension” built into it. That pushes more work into the carcass construction, the pressure targets, and the suspension settings. It also changes how grip arrives during a run, which changes how wear builds.
Goodyear’s own design brief leaned into that reality. The Next Gen tire brought a wider footprint, softer compounds in the toolbox, and a shorter sidewall built for sustained oval loads. That is a different baseline from the old 15 inch era, and it creates different wear patterns even before a team touches camber or pressure.
Greg Stucker put the engineering problem in plain language: “The shorter sidewall of the lower profile tire affects the tire’s ability to carry load, the major challenge to overcome in the design process,” he said.
Load moved around the car, then the left rear took the bill
Next Gen did not just bolt on independent rear suspension for show. It changed how forces feed through the rear of the car, especially on intermediate tracks where sustained corner load lives on the left side. At the same time, aerodynamic balance moved rearward compared with the previous car, raising the demand on the left rear tire in a way teams had to relearn quickly.
That is why you saw early races where cars looked planted one lap, then stepped out the next. When the left rear is carrying more load, the margin for “cute” setups shrinks. You can still chase grip with pressure and camber, but the penalty for missing the window is harsher, and it often shows up as abnormal wear, sidewall stress, or air loss rather than a gentle slide.
Pressure and camber stopped being a vibe and became a constraint
Teams have always played the risk game with pressure and camber. Next Gen just raised the stakes. Independent rear suspension gives more freedom to chase dynamic camber, yet that also changes how the tire loads under cornering. More camber can create speed, but it can also concentrate heat and stress onto a smaller section of the tread and shoulder. That shifts wear from “slow grind” to “sudden drop,” especially late in a run.
Pressure sits right in the middle of it. Low pressure can give short run grip, but it also changes deflection and how the carcass heats. With the lower profile construction, teams are dealing with a different stiffness profile than the old tire, so old habits do not map cleanly across. The result is a tighter working band where a small pressure move can flip the tire from stable to angry.
This is why you will see weekends where one team looks like it has found a sweet spot, while another burns the same set in half a run. It is not mystical. It is geometry, load, temperature, and how far a crew chief wants to lean into the edge of the envelope.
The sport started asking for more fall off, on purpose
The other part that fans miss is that tire wear is not always an accident. NASCAR and Goodyear have been working through compounds and constructions to create more lap time fall off on certain tracks, especially short tracks where passing can turn into a parade without it. That development work sits on top of the Next Gen baseline, so “the car changed tire wear” is also “the targets changed.”
Stucker described that push from inside the garage: “the drivers have been pushing us to be more aggressive in our recommendations,” he said, in the context of tire wear and tire management over a run.
When Goodyear brings a setup that falls off more, the racing can look better, yet it also exposes setup errors faster. A tire built to move around more with heat and time will punish a poor balance sooner. Next Gen makes that punishment sharper, because the car and tire package already run closer to their limits under sustained load.
Why it shows up differently by track type
On intermediates, the wear story often comes from sustained load, long corner time, and the way the left rear carries the car across the run. Heat builds steadily, the tire deforms repeatedly, and the tread wears in a way that rewards balance and smoothness. When teams miss, the failure mode can be air loss or rapid degradation.
On short tracks, the wear story can flip. Braking loads are higher, corner entries are sharper, and the tire sees repeated heat spikes. If the compound is built to fall off, you will see big swings in lap time, then a second phase where tire management becomes the race. Next Gen’s larger brakes and different chassis behaviour feed into that, and it is why short track packages have needed more iteration in this era.
Road courses add their own twist. More braking, more lateral change, more kerb strikes, and more chances to overload one corner on entry. Next Gen’s hardware makes it more compatible with that style, yet it also creates new ways to abuse the tire if the setup is wrong.
What this changed for race craft
Drivers talk less about “saving tires” as a vague concept now, and more about managing phases of a run. Early run grip can be strong, then the tire transitions, then the fall off stabilises. The fastest driver across a stint is often the one who knows when to stop attacking the entry and start protecting the rear. That is a Next Gen behaviour pattern, tied to how load and temperature build on this platform.
Pit decisions also got sharper teeth. When fall off is real, stopping early can be a weapon. When the tire is fragile, short filling a run to stay inside a safe band can save a day. That adds a second layer to what looks like “tire wear,” since the wear is now directly shaping strategy calls rather than sitting in the background as routine maintenance.
The clean, grounded takeaway
The Next Gen car changed tire wear for three blunt reasons:
• The wheel and tire package changed, especially sidewall height and footprint.
• Rear suspension and aero balance shifted loads, especially onto the left rear at speed.
• The sport’s tire targets evolved, with more intentional fall off on selected tracks.
So when someone tells you “Goodyear ruined the racing,” treat it like most human analysis: loud, simple, and wrong. The wear you see is the product of a new baseline, new loads, and a garage that still hunts for every last fraction of grip, even when the penalty is a shredded run instead of a gentle slide.
