Motor Sports Weekly News

Story and UARA photos by: Drew Hierwarter

Anyone who still thought that NASCAR should run their races in the rain needed only to watch the mess that was the last fifteen laps of the Nationwide Series race in Montreal on Sunday. With the finish in sight, and rain falling, rather than call it an official race and dropping the checkered flag, NASCAR allowed all the teams to pit to prepare for racing in the rain. They changed over to treaded rain tires, installed windshield wipers, and treated windshields with Rain-X and anti-fog solutions.

 

Almost immediately upon resumption of green flag racing the carnage began. Cars were crashing into each other, sliding off the track into the mud, and causing a record number of caution periods. In short, it was terrible. Lots of good race cars were torn up needlessly and several drivers had good finishes ruined, not the least of which was champion contender Kyle Busch.

 

Of all the drivers in the field, Marcos Ambrose probably had the most experience road racing in the rain. He dominated the race leading the most laps and running away from the rest of the competition during the closing laps. But repeated yellow flags frustrated his efforts, and on the final lap an uncharacteristic mistake in the next to last turn was all Carl Edwards needed to pass Ambrose for the win.

 

The win by Edwards, coupled with a rain caused 10th place finish by Kyle Busch, brings the championship battle between these two a little closer. Edwards now trails Busch by a mere 192 points with only ten races left to decide the Nationwide Series championship. Brad Keselowski is a distant third behind the Busch/Edwards duo and nobody else is really in contention.

 

 

 

Short track racing is not immune to the effects of rain either. The UARA Stars late model circuit was in action at Newport Speedway in Newport, TN on Saturday night and the threat of rain was always present. The threat turned to a brief downpour right after qualifying was concluded and pushed back the night’s schedule while officials dried the track.

 

Veteran short track ace Jamey Caudill started the race from the pole position and streaked away to a dominating lead for most of the first half of the 150 lap contest. Just past halfway fifth place starter Kevin Leicht managed to pass Caudill and looked to be a sure winner.

 

 

But, once again, rain became a factor as a brief shower forced officials to red flag the race with just seven laps to go. When the race restarted Caudill was a man on a mission and he re-took the lead from Leicht with just two laps to go and sped away to the checkered flag.

 

 

 

 

The win at Newport was the 97^th of Caudill’s late model career and his 13^th under the UARA-Stars banner making him the all time series win leader.

 

 

This entry was posted on Monday, August 31st, 2009 at 8:39 am and is filed under UARA, Nationwide Series, NASCAR, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.