The procedural change for the Aug. 11 Cook Out 400 (6 p.m. ET, USA Network, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NBC Sports App) at the Virginia short track comes after an audition during last month’s NASCAR All-Star Race, a non-points event held at North Wilkesboro (N.C.) Speedway. This application will be the first in a points-paying race.
“The All-Star Race is a great event obviously by itself, but it gives us the opportunity to learn,” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, told NASCAR.com. “This past year, it gave us the chance to try something with tires, and we’re working really hard in NASCAR as well as the folks at the R&D Center to improve the short-track package. So the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro gave us the opportunity to introduce the option tire, something we’d never done to my knowledge in the history of our sport, to have different compounds during an event.
“As that event unfolded, throughout the weekend, we were still optimistic that we would see something there that would really move the needle on our short-track package. We didn’t get the results at Wilkesboro that we were hoping for, with a very similar opportunity that we had at Bristol where we did see results, and even at Iowa where we did as well. Any time we can put our teams in a position where they have to manage tires, we really see some great racing and we see an entertaining race, so that’s our goal going into Richmond.”