Overall, there were numerous left side tire failures, and that included a championship finalist.
The first was Chase Briscoe and then two straight left side failures by AJ Allmendinger, the second of which caused a crash that will send him to a backup car. Christopher Bell had a failure, and then two consecutive ones from Daniel Suarez. Then came Riley Herbst, who crashed. Kyle Busch suffered the same fate and Chase Elliott was worried about the same outcome.
A.J. Allmendinger crash, Kaulig Racing Chevrolet
Photo by: Christian Petersen / Getty Images
Most curious about the rash of left side issues on Friday is that most championship crew chiefs expected more sensitivity over the right sides as a result of the wheel force test at the track in March.
A representative from Goodyear says the issues were purely the results of crew chiefs being too aggressive to find the limit over a rare one-hour session.
Crew chiefs react
Small, the crew chief for Briscoe on the No. 19 team, seemed to indicate that too.
“Too low on air, too much camber. Just too aggressive, I guess,” Small said. “You saw it with a number of cars out there, so, don’t know if it’s been resolved yet. We stopped running there. We had a little bit of a scare at the end. We made a lot of changes through the session, so, yeah, we’ll have to look at it more, break these tires down and see.”
Rudy Fugle, crew chief of the No. 24 for Byron, said Phoenix has more load than the other tracks this left side was used – Richmond and New Hampshire.
“There’s definitely some things to learn,” Fugle said. “At the test, I think there were some right side failures. I think we were more concerned about those and what would happen in the left rears were kind of a surprise. But yeah, this is a track that’s tough on tires for what we’re trying to do to them, what we’re trying to do with our situation to make the cars go faster.”
Chris Gayle, crew chief for Hamlin, said he agreed entirely.
“Definitely the load is the thing, right,” Gayle said. “He’s right, I don’t think there were any left side failures at the wheel force test. I was a little concerned about left side failures, knowing where we’ve been at other tracks.
“Started on the cautious side because I didn’t want to have a left rear failure, go the other way, make sure I have a chance to tear down three tires, Goodyear look at them, know it’s going to be okay, get closer to that edge in the race rather than practice.”
Speaking of Hamlin, the Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 suffered a long clutch on Friday, the latest in a season-long trend that had worried everyone associated with the team leading up to the championship race.
At the time of the post-session press conference, Gayle didn’t have an immediate answer.
“I don’t know much about it now other than the throw is a little off, and he’s having a hard time with it disengaging just because the throw gets so long it won’t disengage,” Gayle said. “We’re looking into it now. I don’t know any more at this point.”
From a speed standpoint, Ty Gibbs was fastest overall with championship finalists posting the following fastest times overall —
5. Hamlin
9. Byron
11. Larson
16. Briscoe
Ryan Blaney was fastest over five lap averages ahead of Hamlin and Elliott. Blaney was fastest over 10-lap averages ahead of Larson and Byron. Larson was fastest over 15 lap averages ahead of Blaney, Tyler Reddick and William Byron.
Of note, Larson’s crew chief, Cliff Daniels, did not come in for a NASCAR mandated press conference, and instead had a very long debrief after the session.
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