Friday, Jul. 03, 2009

Racing while wet: Ideas on keeping bad weather from curtailing NASCAR races

Rainy days and Mondays have always gotten NASCAR down.

NASCAR couldn't even get its biggest Sprint Cup Series race of the season -- the 2009 Daytona 500 -- completed without rain cutting it short, leaving a lot of disgruntled fans at the track and in front of their TVs.

Three times rain has canceled qualifying sessions this season. Three races have had their scheduled distance cut short by rain and one of those -- the Coca-Cola 600 -- was pushed to a Monday start.

But what to do?

Goodyear used to keep wet-weather tires on hand for road course events in the series but doesn't even bother to bring them around any more. They've been used once in a race -- last season on the road course at Montreal in the Nationwide Series.

As TV demands have pushed race start times back, and track schedules have become more compact, there is little room for error, especially if a track doesn't have lights.

Rookie Joey Logano won last Sunday's rain-shortened race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway by holding off making a final pit stop for gas just long enough for approaching bad weather to finally force NASCAR to call the event early.

With tough economic times, race promoters are looking at every option to cater to fans and keep them satisfied. Shortened races or delayed races make every promoter shudder.

Perhaps it's time for NASCAR and Goodyear to consider the use of wet-weather tires -- on ovals and road courses -- to get races to their scheduled distance. After all, hasn't racing always followed "The show must go on" motto?

Former Lowe's Motor Speedway President and General Manager H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler, now a professional sports consultant, believes wet-weather tires are a viable option for NASCAR.

"It wouldn't be as dangerous as you think. The cars would be going much slower, and when a guy got out of shape, you would see some wild and wacky spins," Wheeler said.

"The cars would be harder to stop, therefore, contact with the wall would be more likely but at a slower speed. The real strategy in rain racing is when to ditch the rain tires for the dry ones as the track dries. But that would add to the fun."

Wheeler said the problems associated with bad weather and large motorsports events are numerous and costly. Thus, it may be time to explore other options.

"Tracks take much too long to dry, and it costs everybody -- especially the media, the track, NASCAR and fans -- tons of money," he said. "Just think of the problems with traffic control when you have to wait three hours or more for a rain delay."

Wheeler said in the past track promoters never considered conducting events in the rain, particularly on oval tracks, because there were little advance sales and rain on race day was a "crowd killer."

"Today, if you don't have your tickets sold the week before the race, forget it because no one is coming. I will bet less than 10 percent of the tickets overall these days are sold on the race weekend," he said.

"Tracks would have to modify a few things like grandstand covers and a lot more paving in the parking lots for this to happen. But what's wrong with that? That's progress."