Earlier this season at Richmond, the Cup Series had its first experience using wet-weather tires on shorter ovals when teams started the race on them and ran the first 30 laps until the track dried.
It was just a sample, but most observers, and many drivers, found the race on wet tires better and more entertaining than with the slicks used for the rest of the race.
On Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway we saw an even bigger opportunity and got an even bigger reward.
The race was red-flagged after 219 laps when heavy rain and thunderstorms invaded the track area. Tyler Reddick looked set to claim a victory thanks to a brave decision not to pit during the stage break as his 23XI Racing team expected rain before the end of the race.
They were right, but they probably didn’t bet on NASCAR deciding to wait out a delay of nearly two hours and 15 minutes and then run the rest of the race on wet-weather tires as night approached.
Honestly, it was hard to find anyone (media member, fan, or host) to do it.
An unlikely restart
However, once NASCAR moved the standing water off the track, it allowed teams to switch to wet weather tires while parked on pit road in their stalls and also allowed them to add fuel.
When the race turned green again with 77 laps to go, “the fun” began, as race winner Christopher Bell said.
Drivers moved around the track in various lanes and even created new ones, such as the platform. It seemed like the only place a driver dared not go was the infield, although at times a couple looked like they might.
There were a handful of warnings for crashes, a couple of caution crashes and even an overtime restart.
Bell ended up winning the race, not exactly a surprise winner as he had won at the track a day earlier in the Xfinity Series race and owned a previous Cup victory at the 1.058-mile oval.
Race Winner Christopher Bell, Joe Gibbs Racing, Rheem Toyota Camry
Photo by: David Rosenblum/NKP/Motorsport Images
However, a quick examination of the results illustrated an obvious truth: the decision to continue the race while the track was still wet drastically changed the results.
Only three of the drivers who would have finished in the top 10 if the race had not restarted were there when it ended after 305 laps, and one of them was the winner.
The two drivers best positioned to challenge Bell on the final restart for the win – Stewart-Haas Racing teammates Chase Briscoe and Josh Berry – were not running well enough to compete early in the event.
Reddick, who was never in the lead until his decision to sit out after Stage 2, managed to stay in the top 10 and finished sixth. Kyle Larson ran about the same: seventh when he saw the red flag and finished fourth.
Two different races
No one would have predicted that Chris Buescher, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. or John Hunter Nemechek would finish in the top 10 after seeing their performance in the first 219 laps.
As Bell said after the race, “it was literally the story of two completely different events.”
He even admitted that while he had a solid race before the red flag (he was ninth), wet weather racing greatly improved his luck.
“I mean, what race do we want to talk about? Do we want to talk about dry Loudon or wet Loudon? she said later with a laugh after entering the press center.
“Obviously the rain completely affected what was happening on the track, and in the dry we started very well. I was able to take the lead in the first stage, and then Martin (Truex) Jr. really got there in stage 2.
“I definitely think we had room to improve in the dry. I definitely didn’t have the dominant car. “Then when the rain came, it was like… I mean, we might as well have been somewhere completely different.”
As for the competition on the track, that was certainly the case.
Fans who waited out the delay (at the track and watching on TV) certainly got extra entertainment, and in the end, that’s what most will remember.
Even after a successful race run on a wet oval, there were some notable issues that will need to be addressed going forward.
Among them:
-It seems fair to allow all teams to use wet tires while the race remains under red flag, but when NASCAR allowed teams to add fuel, it altered the outcome of the race for those who had sat out after Stage 2 and gambled . about the time to come. NASCAR’s decision to resume racing should not be a free pass for the teams that made what ended up being a poor strategic decision.
-NASCAR does not allow teams to choose when to use which tire: they make the decision. This might have been understandable before there were real on-track results with tires, but now that there are, it’s time to let teams make the kind of decisions they’ve made during their careers.
-There is clearly a safety concern in allowing competitive pit stops on a street that remains wet, which is why NASCAR has so far not allowed them. Perhaps the cars could be parked somewhere different under a red flag for rain, allowing for work on pit road and on the track as he prepares to return to racing.
-Teams received four sets of rain tires for Sunday’s race and ended up using three. At some point, NASCAR will face a situation where it will face conditions that would allow the use of tires for an entire race. However, it is clear that they are not prepared to do so. It would do NASCAR good to set some rules about what racing it is willing to run in adverse conditions rather than finding itself in the middle of an event and having to bring it to a premature conclusion.
Ryan Preece, Stewart-Haas Racing, Mohawk Northeast Ford Mustang
Photo by: Rusty Jarrett/NKP/Motorsport Images
Again, none of the issues that arose in Sunday’s race ultimately led to a bad result or experience, but they are still legitimate questions and were raised by the teams during the event.
Another question also arose: Why did NASCAR never employ its ‘darkness policy,’ which includes setting a time for the race to end when it is dark and there are no lights? More than one team leader seemed baffled that it was never mentioned.
NASCAR takes a lot of criticism for a variety of issues, and some of it is certainly justified, but it is miles ahead of every other major racing series in its investment in improving track drying efforts and wet-weather racing on road courses and now ovals. .
Sunday’s race in New Hampshire (both close) was an example of the great reward.
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