Teams competing in the All-Star Race this weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway have a prime and option tire to use, and the hope is it will provide different strategy plays for the event.

The option tire, or softer tire, was designed to provide more grip and is faster than the prime tire. During practice Friday afternoon, teams had one set of option tires to put on to see how they would react. It was obvious the tire was faster as those who put them on jumped to the top of the leaderboard.

Green means go! It’s #optiontire time for @KyleLarsonRacin as #AllStarRace practice winds down @CLTMotorSpdwy pic.twitter.com/oUPIBVw0uA

— CGR NASCAR Teams (@CGRnascar) May 19, 2017

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Goodyear worldwide director of racing Stu Grant met with a group of media members afterward to share his analysis of how the option tires reacted in practice.

“What I’ve seen so far today, I think NASCAR should be really pleased with what happened this afternoon because we ended up delivering exactly what they wanted, which was a faster tire that’s going to give up more,” Grant said. “Based on our numbers and what we saw, and everything is obviously limited when you have one set, but it was three-tenths faster than the prime, and over a 10-lap run it gave up three-tenths more, so I think you’re going to have the comers and goers and strategy.

How long can they last on a run?

“They’ll last a 20-lap segment. You could easily run 20 laps on that. It’ll be a normal type of fallout, albeit a little bit more than the prime, but it’ll fall off to a point and then level off like the prime does.”

When you’re designing a tire to purposely to fall away quicker, how do you find out where that medium area is where you can’t push over too far?

“That’s really difficult for us to do. NASCAR’s always interested in more and more fall-off, they want that, and you could get that a number of ways. A tire that runs hotter is going to fall off more. A tire that wears more is going to fall off more. For the most part. But even having said that, that’s not even true in every case. What we did for this setup, we designed the tire for more grip and we just assumed that you’re going to get the additional fall-off, which we did. But we were after something that was three to five tenths faster, and we got that.”

What does your gut, if you had to guess, what do you think guys will do tomorrow night?

“If I had to guess, what do I know? I know I have to be one of those 10 cars in that last segment. So, if I haven’t won stage one or two or three, and it looks like my average isn’t that good, I might throw the option tire on in one of the stages in order to get an average finish high enough to put me in that 10-lap sprint and then I’ll just play the track position game with the right set of primes. That’s what I would do. Make sure I got into that last 10-lap segment. Conversely, if I won stage one or two and I’m in, then I think I’ll save them.”

Even if it means starting in the back?

“Exactly because it’s only 10 cars. I only have 10 cars (to compete with).”

And the tires are that much faster?

“Yeah.”

Around what lap does the fall-off seem to be evident?

“It just falls off a little bit more every lap. It isn’t that it drops off at a steeper angle, that doesn’t happen. It seems to be dropping off at a regular pace.”