Motor Sports Weekly News

By: Drew Hierwarter

Is it just me or has there been more than the usual number of races affected by rain this year? From the rain-shortened Daytona 500, to the first time wins by David Reutimann and Joey Logano in rain-shortened events at Charlotte and Loudon, respectively, rain has been a pretty big factor in the outcome of many NASCAR races this year. Rain has also washed out several Friday qualifying sessions this year and shortened a couple of Camping World Truck races and Nationwide races.

And now this week we have the second straight postponement of a NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Sunday until Monday. First it was Pocono last week, and this week the road race at Watkins Glen. Nobody likes to postpone a race, least of all the NASCAR officials. Staying over at the race track an extra day throws a monkey wrench into the works and creates havoc for everybody’s schedule. In fact the ripple effect of postponing last week’s race at Pocono reached all the way to the White House. The President was scheduled to host several NASCAR stars on that Monday and the meeting has yet to be rescheduled.

The race track is also affected financially by a postponement. Security, parking personnel, concession workers, clean up crews, safety crews, and many more workers all must be paid for the extra day.

Certainly the race fans are affected. The worst are those fans who simply can’t afford to miss work on Monday and must return home Sunday night. They’re left having nothing to show for their ticket dollars and travel expenses. Other fans may be able to “call in sick” or make other arrangements, but they still have the expense of an extra night on the road, away from home.

The obvious question that is raised by all this is; why then don’t they just race in the rain? Other series race in the rain, most notably Formula 1 and the Indy car Series. Why not NASCAR? This question comes up repeatedly on talk shows, in e-mails, and on Internet boards every time a race is affected by the weather. The simple answer is that racing in the rain is a dumb idea. Especially in 3800 pound stock cars.

First of all, for more reasons that I have space to list, racing in the rain will never happen on an oval track. It would be disastrous. So let’s not even consider it there. That leaves NASCAR’s two road course events, Infineon Raceway in California and Watkins Glen Raceway in New York. The chances of rain in June at Infineon are extremely remote. That leaves the Watkins Glen race as the only one on the schedule that could potentially be run in the rain. However, let’s forget all of the technical reason why configuring a stock car to race in the rain is impractical and just look at what the race would be like.

When other race series run in the rain, driver visibility is a huge problem. The result is a race that’s run at no more than 60% to 70% of the car’s potential speed. Sometimes even less than that. The drivers can’t see well enough to go fast and even though they have special treaded “rain tires” traction is marginal at best. The races become follow-the-leader affairs with nobody racing very hard. And that just isn’t much fun to watch.

And don’t forget the fans. Why would NASCAR and the race track promoter want fans to have to sit on soggy, cold seats, in a downpour watching a half speed race? Who would want to do that?

No, racing in the rain is a bad idea for everybody involved and I, for one, am glad that NASCAR doesn’t do it.