Every preset is tuned per track — green-flag lap time, tire falloff, pit-road time loss, race distance, and fuel window. Scrub the inputs, compare stints, or drop into fuel-window mode on superspeedways and road courses. Educational model — not team telemetry.
Next race loaded · New Hampshire Motor Speedway · Dollar Tree 301 · 301 laps
Optimal stint
32
laps
Pit stops
9
stops
Projected total
160m 38.8s
Raw optimum
32.5
laps≈
#21 · Wood Brothers Racing
Dollar Tree 301 · last stop lap 185 · now lap 301
No official pit clocks
Berry last completed
53
laps · stop 185 · stage
Calculator optimal
32
laps · raw 32.5
Last dry stint ran +21 laps long vs Optimal Stint · extra tire fade +63.5s. Est. stint wall time 27m 58.6s.
His only green-flag stop (lap 132) was a 62-lap stretch — +30 vs optimal, +100.4s extra fade. Stages and cautions forced the other stops.
| Stop | Kind | Stint | vs opt | Est. time | Fade vs opt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
40 1–40 | caution | 40 | Rain tires | 20m 48.2s | — Competition caution — swapped rain tires for slicks with the field. |
70 41–70 | stage | 30 | −2 | 15m 25.3s | −4.4s Stage 1 P5. Four tires + fuel with the field. |
132 71–132 | green | 62 | +30 | 33m 3.8s | +100.4s Green-flag stop as the leader. Charged back to the front. |
185 133–185 | stage | 53 | +21 | 27m 58.6s | +63.5s Stage 2 service. Lost the race off pit road to Wallace — restarted 2nd. |
301+ 186–301 | open | 116so far | In progress | 65m 37.0s | — On this set now. |
USA TODAY live desk + field sequence. Official pit-stall clocks were not published — times on the calculator are this model’s estimates. Change lap time or deg rate above and these times update with the Optimal Stint number.
Counting down · 301 to go
Stop 1
269
to go
Stop 2
237
to go
Stop 3
205
to go
Stop 4
173
to go
Stop 5
141
to go
Stop 6
109
to go
Stop 7
77
to go
Stop 8
45
to go
Stop 9
13
to go
Berry actually stopped
Race laps · Dollar Tree 301
Stop 1 · caution
40
wets
Stop 2 · stage
70
race lap
Stop 3 · green
132
race lap
Stop 4 · stage
185
race lap
Model chips above are laps-to-go from here. Berry's chips are the actual stop laps already in the books — compared to Optimal Stint in the card above.
Tire mode: each lap on the same set costs a little more time (deg rate). Pitting costs a fixed chunk of wall time (pit loss). The green-flag stint that balances those over a long run is
optimal stint ≈ √(2 × pit loss ÷ deg rate)
We round that to a whole lap count, schedule stops every stint until the checkers, and rebuild lap times as a sawtooth: fresh tires pull the line down, deg walks it up, a vertical marker is a pit.
Fuel / superspeedway mode: deg is effectively noise, so stops follow the tank (laps per tank) instead of the tire square-root. Compare mode keeps the same base lap and pit loss — only stint length changes — then reports the total-time delta at the finish.
Model assumes clean green-flag running, equal service every stop, and no tire fall-off cliff past a wear threshold. Real races add weather, track evolution, stages, and the guy who jumps you on a caution.