NASCAR: 5 Lessons Learned From The Camping World 500 At Phoenix

New Tires Don’t Always Lead to Victory

One of the biggest lessons learned from Phoenix deals with tires. After a caution came out during the final handful of laps, thanks to Joey Logano blowing a tire and hitting the wall, Kyle Busch and several of the other leading cars went in to get new tires for the final overtime laps on Sunday.

One driver who stayed out though was Ryan Newman. With only two laps to go Newman started in front of the pack and with only a couple of drivers around him who were also on older tires.

With the help of clean air Newman was able to hold back Larson and the other drivers, who had new tires, to win on Sunday.

When you think about Newman and his teams decision to keep the 31 car out on the track instead of hitting pit road, it was a smart move. So smart that it won him the race and it’s confusing, to say the least, as to why other top drivers didn’t take the chance and stay out front too.

With how much of a dominant lead Kyle Busch had and how fast he was on restarts, was it worth it for him to get two tires on that last pit stop? Heading to pit road actually put him further back as Kyle Larson beat him out of the pits.

With clean air, how well he was able to get out in front on restarts and how Phoenix is only a mile track, if Busch stayed out he may have had a better chance to win the race.

Instead of Busch and other top drivers staying out though, Ryan Newman and the 31 team took a chance and it paid off with a win. They also proved that while tires can help a driver with speed, deciding to take them at the very end of a race isn’t always enough to get a driver into Victory Lane.