In the long list of costs that are involved in running a NASCAR car and team, one of the standout figures comes from the tires. NASCAR teams all make use of the same type of tire, which is all part of the “stock car” racing experience. The official supplier of tires right now at the time of writing is Goodyear.
NASCAR tires can cost 350 to 500 dollars per tire. However, they are custom made for the tracks and cars and optimized for performance. Where the real expense comes from is the potential number of tires that could be used in a race. Up to 16 sets per team could amount to more than 25,000 dollars per race.
How much do NASCAR tires cost? Per race? Per season? The numbers might surprise you, but at any rate you’ll find it interesting just how much these round rubber contraptions cost teams, and just how many are used during the course of a race and a season. These ideas and more are what we’re exploring in this article.
It’s everything you wanted to know about NASCAR tire expense!
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We mentioned above that Goodyear is the sole supplier of NASCAR tires, but why is that? Wouldn’t it be more interesting to allow a bit of market force to take place? Goodyear is no stranger to the world of NASCAR.
The two have had an association going back to 1969, but it was in 1997 that NASCAR and Goodyear signed their contract that allowed the latter to become sole supplier for the main NASCAR series. It has helped the Goodyear plant in Akron, Ohio go into overdrive, producing up to 100,000 tires per year just for NASCAR.
The tires themselves are Goodyear Eagle Radical Race tires. For the 6th-generation vehicles launched in 2022, these tires feature 18-inch bead diameter tips, as well as additional tread compounds to improve traction, and no inner liners.
Before 2022, the tires had always been 15-inch models.
Each tire costs the team anywhere from $350 to $500, making a full set from $1,400 to $2,000 in total. When you remember that there could be as many as 10 pit stops during a race, sometimes even more, and teams are given up to 16 sets of tires per race, then the total budget per-race budget for tires is about $20,000.
It does vary from race to race, of course, but that tends to be what it works out at on average, and that’s what the top teams budget for each race.
The per-race number for investment on tires seems excessive, but the fact is that these tires are hand-crafted in Goodyear’s Akron, Ohio plant, and are thus not in the same league as ordinary tires that are mass produced for passenger cars.
The level of engineering that goes into producing a track-friendly tire is far greater, with high speeds, sudden maneuvers and more to factor into the mix.
The cost of $350-500 per tire actually doesn’t seem so high when you really think about it, but the number is simply driven higher because of the sheer number of tires that are needed to keep cars safe on the track. Each one only lasts for about 100 miles, assuming that nothing else goes wrong on the day.
Even the amount of money spent on tires for one car in a single race can be enough to make some people’s eyes water, but it’s really when you see the costs over a full season that they start to properly sink in. With a budget of $20,000 per race, and 36 races in the seasons, teams need to ensure they have at least $720,000 per season, give or take some contingency money for if and when things go wrong on race day.
Each team is allowed up to 16 sets of tires per race, not all of which may be used, but those tires still come into the teams budgets if they’re used in the lineup.
Let’s say a team uses its full allotment over the course of a 36-race season, that comes to a total of 64 tires per race, or 2,304 tires for the season. Now take that number and multiply it across all the different teams and drivers, and you end up with about 100,000 tires per year.
One word has been interestingly absent from our tire story so far, and that’s “buy” or any of its synonyms such as purchase or procure. This is because technically the NASCAR teams are not buying their tires from Goodyear at all, but rather leasing them.
The money NASCAR is investing into tires therefore is purely on the use of the tires and not on any other aspect, all of which have to be handled by Goodyear. Some teams do get their Goodyear tires from other third-party suppliers, but this is not the standard or typical arrangement.
The total per-race cost of a NASCAR vehicle is up to $400,000 at the top end of the series.
We’ve mentioned that the tires cover about $20,000 of that cost, but that clearly only forms a small portion of the overall costs. Below is a rundown of some other important costs involved in running a NASCAR vehicle and team each race:
Looking at these things, tires are neither the smallest nor the largest expense, but no one can disagree that investing in the right number of tires is a calculation that no team can afford to get wrong.
any more facts and information articles on NASCAR (and other) tires on the site. you can check out a few below.
The cost of NASCAR tires alone makes the eyes water, but as we highlighted above these are no ordinary tires. These are custom made for the car, the drivers and even the track being raced at that week. At 400 dollars a pop expensive as it is it becomes understandable for custom made tires.
The only issue is travelling at 200 Miles an Hour puts some pressure on those tires and they have to be changed at lot, that’s where the real cost mounts up, not just tin the cost per tire but the amount that can be used in a race!
References
To figure out exactly how much a NASCAR Sprint Cup race car costs, let's start with the heart of the machine: the engine.
Even before the Car of Tomorrow, NASCAR officials established strict rules about the size and specifications of a legal racing engine. The engine can be no larger than 358 cubic inches (5,867 cubic centimeters), which limits the amount of horsepower that the engine can produce [source: Martin]. And when NASCAR teams race on the Daytona International Speedway or the Talladega Superspeedway -- the two biggest tracks in the Sprint Cup Series -- engines need to be fitted with a restrictor plate to cut airflow to the engine to put a cap on racing speeds.
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Most top racing teams build their own engines from scratch.
The total cost of these engines, which take more than 100 hours to build, is anywhere between $45,000 and $80,000 [source: Martin, Hendrick Motorsports]. At Hendrick Motosports, a racing shop that supports four different Sprint Cup teams, a 95-person engine department cranks out more than 600 engines a year [source: Hendrick Motorsports].
Now let's talk tires. NASCAR racing tires have very little in common with standard street tires. For one thing, NASCAR tires have no tread, which allows them to grip the road surface easier. Plus they're much wider than regular tires, about 11 inches (28 centimeters) across [source: Martin]. Each one is constructed by hand from layers and layers of rubberized material reinforced by rubber-coated steel cables called beads [source: Mackinnon]. Each tire costs between $350 and $450.
"" A set of racing tires sits behind Mike Skinner's car in the garage area of Lowe's Motor Speedway near Charlotte, N.C. The tires for NASCAR cars cost $350 to $450 each.
Todd Warshaw/Getty Images
Interestingly, racing teams don't buy their tires. They lease them from Goodyear (the official tire supplier of NASCAR) on race day. Each team is allowed to lease 16 sets of four tires [source: Mackinnon]. That means that each NASCAR Sprint Cup team invests around $20,000 on tires alone for each race.
The chassis or body of a NASCAR race car is built for aerodynamics and safety, not comfort. There's only one seat (the driver's seat). There's no speedometer or gas gauge, no brake lights or headlights -- the doors don't even open [source: Martin]!
Before the introduction of the CoT, NASCAR race cars came in four only types: Ford Fusion, Cheverolet Impala SS, Dodge Charger and Toyota Camry. Even though these race car models had none of the perks of their street-legal cousins -- anti-lock brakes, air conditioning, fuel injection, front-wheel drive -- they still ran about $70,000 a piece.
With all those expensive parts, a pre-CoT NASCAR Sprint Cup race car costs between $125,000 and $150,000.
Exact figures on the price tag of the Car of Tomorrow are not available, although legendary team owner Jack Roush of Roush Fenway Racing commented in July 2008 that the CoT costs him 50 percent more to build and 50 percent more to maintain after a crash, but that the huge discount on research and development brings the total cost savings to 25 to 30 percent [source: Ryan].
So who pays for all of these speed machines? We'll explore that question in the next section.
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After watching NASCAR races, at some point you must have dreamed of getting behind those lightning wheels and being a race car driver, or at least dreaming of owning a race car someday.
It's not easy, other than being a good racer with great driving skills, money is a big deal in NASCAR racing, you need to have a good sponsor to spend big money on a racing team. The cost of a NASCAR race car depends on its layout.
The design of a car used in NASCAR championships is called a Generation 6 or Gen-6 car. They were introduced in 2013 to replace the Car of Tomorrow or CoT model as the predecessor had various safety issues. Gen-6 model vehicles will be replaced by NextGen model vehicles in 2023.
These cars have special aerodynamic and downforce systems to enhance their racing performance as well as safety measures. NASCAR has become a primetime sport, and it has costs to match. Most of these huge budgets are spent on building, refurbishing and upgrading the entire racing car fleet.
Most NASCAR championship and Daytona 500 teams keep 10 to 15 cars in racing conditions as a reserve. Some races, such as the Daytona, are more expensive as teams choose to use two engines, one for the 150 mile qualifying race and the other for the Daytona 500.
costs depend on the budget of the respective racing teams and sponsors.
Car manufacturers used in NASCAR Rounds:
The cost of one engine used in the NASCAR RAS $40,000 and additional upgrades will add approximately $40,000.
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Official NASCAR regulations limit engine size to 358 cubic inches (5,867 cubic centimeters), limiting the amount of power a car can produce, and because of this, top speed limits for racing cars made by Dodge have been lifted .
At super speedways like Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, these top-tier stock NASCAR-specific cars not only hit 200 mph (322 km/h), they also deliver 860-900 horsepower output. With. from their V8 engines.
Toyota Racing Development, Earnhardt Childress Racing and Hendrick Motorsports are NASCAR's main suppliers of racing engines.
NASCAR racing tires are very different from standard street tires, they don't have tread to help them grip flat track surfaces much faster, and NASCAR tires are wider than regular tires, about 11 inches (28 centimeters) across.
Tire is $350 to $450 each, this set of four tires will cost around $2000 which means $20,000 just for tires for one race. NASCAR teams primarily lease their tires from the Goodyear Tire Company, which is the official supplier of NASCAR.
Major parts and components such as brakes and rotors cost between $20,000 and $40,000 to $70,000 and 120,000. A new base car or chassis for customization and upgrades will cost at least $10,000-$0,000. The areas where NASCAR cars save money are in the speedometer, fuel gauge, brake lights, or headlights and doors, these race cars don't use any of those.
Any damage to major components such as suspension parts, driveshafts, cooling systems, bearings, axles, gears of a car can cost tens of thousands of dollars from about $30,000 to $50,000.
When the vehicle is moving at 200 mph, any slight contact with other race cars or roadsides can result in severe impact to the vehicle's bodywork, and sometimes malfunction of internal systems.
NASCAR teams sign up for accident insurance because the car alone will cost them $400,000.
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| Occupation: | Racer |
| Nationality: | United States of America |
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Expect shells $350 to $450 for one tire. But racing teams don't buy their tires. Instead, they rent them from Goodyear, the official tire manufacturer that supplies NASCAR tires every race day. Each racing team can rent up to 16 sets of 4 tires.
How much does a NASCAR engine cost?
Engine Cost
On average, a typical NASCAR engine costs About $100,000 . However, during some races teams use more than one engine.
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| State | Annual salary | Monthly payment |
|---|---|---|
| California | $50,827 | $4,236 |
| Hawaii | $50,232 | $4,186 |
| Kentucky | $50,162 | $4,180 |
| Vermont | $49,978 | $4,165 |
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| Date of birth: | July 2, 1937 (aged 84) |
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Company operates 84 dealerships throughout the country, including Earnhardt offices.
