Fresher tires or faster cars?

[HardScrabble]

Benny, Wally and Co. made mudh of the fact that Jeff, Rusty, and Jr had fresher tires than Harvick, Kensth and Busch during the closing stages of the race.

Was that the diff?? Or were those three cars just plain set up better. Seems to me that the 24, 2, and 8 were the class of the field for most of the night. We'll never know for sure, but my money says the finish would have been about the same if all those guys had been on tires of equal runs.

 

[Awesome_Bill]

I think that Tires did make a small bit of difference but not really that much. But I will say with the time that Harvick had on Wallace and co would have been very hard to make up on older tires and passing would have been even tougher.

 

[HardScrabble]

How much fresher were the tires??

Jeff, Rusty and Jr last pitted with 128 laps to go, Harvick pitted with 148 laps to go, and Kenseth who finished 5th, pitted with 172 laps to go. All those numbers being unheard of a few years back.