Called on account of rain

[jslone]

I am a little miffed that they called the race on showers.Daytona has lights so they could have gone on to do a full race if they had too,but I do not like the way it ended.What do you think?

[Lee Janotta]

Totally lame decision, they probably lost a couple hundred thousand fans... Like everyone who bought tickets!

[GTV27]

Newbie question - why don't they bolt on some wets and race in the rain? Surely an oval would drain pretty well (?)

[Lee Janotta]

Goodyear doesn't have any wet tires for these cars, they have no windshield wipers, and there are at most a dozen guys in the whole field who have _ever_ driven a race in rain.

It's never been tried on an oval, but on a superspeedway like Daytona, I think it'd be an absolute disaster that'd make the starting line crash at Spa in '98 look like child's play.

[GTV27]

Originally posted by Lee Janotta
Goodyear doesn't have any wet tires for these cars, they have no windshield wipers, and there are at most a dozen guys in the whole field who have _ever_ driven a race in rain.

It's never been tried on an oval, but on a superspeedway like Daytona, I think it'd be an absolute disaster that'd make the starting line crash at Spa in '98 look like child's play.

Well, the first three reasons are just circular arguments (now that's a real bad pun, circular, oval, geddit... ).

The big crash theory may be right, but why? What is it about oval racing that would make it unsafe (well, more unsafe than any racing in the rain?)

A superspeedway is just a big oval isn't it?

[Joe Fan]

Originally posted by GTV27
Well, the first three reasons are just circular arguments (now that's a real bad pun, circular, oval, geddit... ).

The big crash theory may be right, but why? What is it about oval racing that would make it unsafe (well, more unsafe than any racing in the rain?)

A superspeedway is just a big oval isn't it?

Goodyear does have rain tires for Winston Cup cars specificaly for road course events but racing in the rain on any oval, especially a track like Daytona is totally out of the question because it would be a disaster. Have you ever seen 31 degree banking up close? It is extremely difficult to walk up the degree of banking with tennis shoes on. I was at Daytona one year and they had a light shower and the vehicle that has the jet blow driers was drying the track. When it got up into the banking near the outside retaining wall, you could see it sliding down the track. With that degree of banking, the truck could have tipped over if it didn't have a proper weight distribution to that side and they have to have the grippiest tires for these type weather conditions.

[racer69]

I guess it was probably TV committments that forced them to call it.

No doubt it would have been good for it to go the distance, especially as the lights where there.

[Asp]

Exactly, how long can you wait?
I saw the satellitle picture on nascar.com, and after the shower that was over to bring the second stoppage there was a *huge* storm en route. By the time they'd got the track back after the the shower, the storm would've arrived, and they'd have been another delay for something like 5 hours. And that would've been far too long for everyone to wait!

[GTV27]

Originally posted by Joe Fan
Goodyear does have rain tires for Winston Cup cars specificaly for road course events but racing in the rain on any oval, especially a track like Daytona is totally out of the question because it would be a disaster. Have you ever seen 31 degree banking up close? It is extremely difficult to walk up the degree of banking with tennis shoes on. I was at Daytona one year and they had a light shower and the vehicle that has the jet blow driers was drying the track. When it got up into the banking near the outside retaining wall, you could see it sliding down the track. With that degree of banking, the truck could have tipped over if it didn't have a proper weight distribution to that side and they have to have the grippiest tires for these type weather conditions.

Thanks for the explanation - wouldn't the centrifugal force keep the cars from sliding down the track - I'm presuming the jet dry truck was not running very fast at the time - they're more likely to slide up the track towards the wall?

I must admit, I still don't see the technical reason for stopping play for rain - those good old boys mus'nt like getting wet

[Lee Janotta]

It's not really that they'd be sliding down the track, but rather up it, straight into the wall. Most of these guys know how to race on dirt tracks, but with 700hp on a wet track with your foot flat to the floor the whole way around, forced to draft the whole race because of the damn restrictor plates... They'd just never be able to complete two laps without a massive crash, the cars are too close together and the grip would be too hard to find.

Most of the cars are set up loose anyway for the dry, they'd be impossible to control on a wet track. The level of finesse required to control a car on these big ovals is massive, you can't lose the back end and except to just correct for the slide, you'll find yourself right in the wall, or with the guy behind you with his nose in your left quarter panel pushing you the rest of the way around.

[muggle not]

Dont even think about Nascar racing in the rain. It would be absolute disaster.

[GTV27]

If it rained at the US F1 GP, what do you think would happen?

I think F1 would just get on with it, banking or no banking.

Do Cart and IRL call it quits when wet?

[JamesJimmy]

Originally posted by GTV27
Do Cart and IRL call it quits when wet?

Yup. On ovals, anyway.

[Lee Janotta]

It did rain at the USGP in '00, but the layout is such that the speeds through the oval's turn 1 are not as high as they would be during a full oval race. Plus F1 cars have _far_ more aero grip.

And JamesJimmy is absolutely right. Every series throws the red flag on an oval when the rain falls.

Aside from the absolute farce in Australia last year, though, CART keeps racing through the rain on road and street courses, which is good since Portland has the same reputation for weather that Silverstone does.

[bcobbus]

I would like to have seen them try to restart the race today, "monday". While I do not know whst the weather was like today in Florida, could you imagine the TV ratings that the race would get with much of the North East snowed in! I guess they did what they had to do. But could you imagine baseball calling a game 7 seven of the World Series in the sixth inning?

[racer69]

NASCAR's raced in the rain in the Gold Coast Indy support race in 1992, but that is a road course of course.

The speeds combined with the banking, weight of the cars would probably make it very undriveable, let alone unsafe, plus the cars are so close what about the spray. Plus, over time it has appeared that in the USA wet weather racing isn't looked on favourably. I've been told they used to red flag road racing if it rained. Is that true?

[Lee Janotta]

Originally posted by racer69
NASCAR's raced in the rain in the Gold Coast Indy support race in 1992, but that is a road course of course.

The speeds combined with the banking, weight of the cars would probably make it very undriveable, let alone unsafe, plus the cars are so close what about the spray. Plus, over time it has appeared that in the USA wet weather racing isn't looked on favourably. I've been told they used to red flag road racing if it rained. Is that true?

Not that I can remember, though NASCAR would throw the red during a road race if it rained, having no wipers.

The Trans-Am race at Road America in '01 was red flagged, but it was a torrential downpour, the track was flooding, run-off areas were looking like car parks! While I would have rather seen the race continue, I can understand the desicion to end the race early.

And of course, we saw the CART debacle at Surfer's last year. But they also have kept right on racing through heavy rain at many a track.

So... Officials here are a bit more cowardly than Europeans with regards to wet-weather racing (I don't know much about how the Aussies handle it), but they do usually run the race anyway.

Lest we forget, competitors in the 1965 Sebring 12 Hours were told to press on regardless, despite ankle-deep standing water on the track!!

[GTV27]

In Oz we follow the European tradition of racing in all weather conditions (within reason obviously), but most racing here is sedan based (with windsreen wipers )so the spray is a bit more contained than for open wheelers.

From the arguments presented - the most compelling reason seems to be the way the cars are set up "loose" and the very limited chance of catching oversteer on an oval, thus making driving in the wet very difficult (Thanks Lee).

However, set ups can be changed and drivers can become accustomed to the more challenging conditions (ie slow down!) so it would not be impossible, just tradition prevents it.

[Lee Janotta]

Indeed, if one did make a concerted effort, I'm sure it'd be possible to set up a Winston Cup car to race in the rain on a superspeedway. There would probably still be a huge number of crashes, though. Juan Montoya's the only driver that _I've_ ever seen drift through a corner on a superspeedway.

[GTV27]

If its possible, Juan will do it.

If its not possible, he'll still give it a damn good try.

Ya gotta like that in a driver.

[Roselady3]

Daytona is far too dangerous to try "rain driving" on. Banking too high, speeds to high & Restricter plates bunching them all together. We've lost too many drivers in dry conditions--They certainly are not going to try rain there.

NASCAR made the descision the same way they always do. Nothing changes. You try to race & once you get to the halfway- If there is impending rain (& there was) The race is called.

If they could not get the cars to the halfway mark- they would have scheduled it for Monday.

Also not mentioned. The total east coast was being bombarded with a snow & Ice storm. The cars all have to go home & the haulers need to be reloaded & ready to go to the next race, like immediatly. If they would have delayed until Monday- they would have had haulers stranded on the highways. Airports were shut down & many areas lost power. Travel was NOT advisable.

FOX had 2 shows that they have been heavily advertising for weeks. One was the Simpsons 300th show & I am sure THAT had something to do with the "Newscast's" vote as to what to do.

There was a bit more there than you guys are taking into consideration.

[Asp]

I'm going to resurrect an old-topic after Jeff Burton's comments during the Rain Delay at Darlington yesterday.
We're all sitting here saying it's far too dangerous to risk racing on ovals in the rain. And indeed some ovals - looking at the Restrictor Plate tracks in particular - it probably would be suicidal.
But what about tracks like Darlington? We all say it's dangerous, that there'd be no grip - but why don't we try it and see?
Jeff Burton said that when he tried the rain tyres at the 'Glen (I think) they were really good- and that he'd be willing to try them at a track. Take a willing driver like JB, and if he comes in and says "Everyone was right, there's no grip out there at all" - then at least we can say we tried it! However, if he comes in and says "The car's great out there", then we can avoid all the horrendous rain delays!