Sure it wasn’t a bad night at the office for the likes of Kyle Larson. The Bristol Night Race went on without much of a hitch on Saturday night. Well, maybe most of the drivers and the sport in general were expecting some tire wear.

A senior NASCAR executive says “we’re baffled” why tires didn’t wear as much in last weekend’s Cup race at Bristol compared to the March event there. Kyle Larson led 462 of 500 laps and won last Saturday’s race at Bristol Motor Speedway by seven seconds. That race had eight lead changes.

The sanctioning body and spec tire supplier Goodyear got a drastically different race than what it tried to create