NASCAR Vice President Elton Sawyer provides wet weather tyre update

Wet weather tyres made their first appearance in an oval race where points were up for grabs last night.

The first thirty laps of the Toyota Owners 400 were run under wet conditions with the new wet weather tyres that Goodyear have provided to NASCAR.

In the past races would have been delayed until the track was deemed dry. But with this innovation for the series the race was able to get underway as soon as possible.

After the race, NASCARs Senior Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, spoke to the media about the new wet weather tyres:

“I thought it was a huge success a real credit to Mr France,” started Sawyer.

“It was his vision about three years ago to task everyone in the R&D centre at Goodyear to figure out how we could get a wet weather tyre, to get our wet weather races started on time or if we had a rain delay during the race that we could get back underway quicker.”

Sawyer and the NASCAR officials thought last night's race was a real success for the drivers, teams, and Goodyear with the inclusion of the wet weather tyres:

“We were able to accomplish that tonight, we had some great racing, I thought the drivers did a great job we still have some work to do on our side.

“We want to keep the competitive pit-stops but also keep safety in mind.”

The first thirty laps on the wet weather tyres were all incident free and no cautions were thrown at all during the period that the drivers were on wet tyres.