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NASCAR meets weather halfway: Nationwide drivers can race in the wet but not Sprint Cup

Last Saturday was a unique day for NASCAR — one that some fans had been waiting for and wondering about for quite a long time. It was the day that the rains came — and the racing did not stop.

After the Nationwide Series race last week in Montreal, the experiment of racing in the rain, the advisability of staging such an experiment and the potential for holding more NASCAR races in the rain were subjects of intense debate.

With rain in the forecast for this weekend’s NASCAR races at the Watkins Glen road course in the Finger Lakes region of New York, the debate could reoccur.

The rains came early in the Nationwide race last weekend, and they came in near biblical proportions. Some places at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve quickly were flooded to a depth of a couple of inches.

The cars were herded into pit lane, and precedent disappeared.

Out came grooved tires that were several years old and on went windshield wipers and other rain gear.

The cars were sent back out, and for more than 30 laps, they raced in constant rain. When the rain turned into a deluge and track flooding was deemed dangerous, the race ended.

Many career NASCAR drivers found the experience enjoyable and reveled in its history-making nature.

“I kind of was looking forward to this, because I’ve never raced in the rain,” Greg Biffle said. “It was a lot of fun. It got a little hairy there when it started raining so hard. The car would hydroplane bad down the front stretch — and I mean a 140 or 150 mph hydroplane is not very safe.

“It made it hard to see there at the end. It was raining so hard and everything was getting so wet. So the car started to fill with water, and we were going to start having electrical problems — well not us — but probably everybody soon. But it was fun. It was a lot of fun. I’m glad I made history today.”

Some were not crazy about the rain. Young driver Joey Logano, who had a good run going until getting involved in a wreck late in the race, was one of those.

“I just don’t understand why we go past halfway in the rain,” Logano said. “I think if you’re halfway, you’ve got to stop it. And we went until there were 26 laps to go. It’s pouring rain, and we’re racing.”

The big question centered on the tires: Would the grooved Goodyears get the job done?

Most drivers agreed that they did. It was the windshield wipers and defogging systems that failed.

“Where the windshield wiper was, I couldn’t see out the right side of the car,” Patrick Carpentier said. “I noticed that the windshield would fog up more where the windshield wiper was. So sometimes I would shut it off (the windshield wiper) in the fast straightaways because the wind was too strong for the wiper to come back down. Then I would turn it back on in the low-speed corners just to clean it up and to keep the fog away. I think some of the guys that didn’t have a windshield wiper got caught by that. The thing that made me laugh is when I saw Carl Edwards on the big screen squeegeeing out of the window. I thought that was the highlight of the race.”

Those who predicted that racing in the rain would be NASCAR Armageddon were pleasantly surprised. Until the track became completely undriveable, the quality of racing was good. Even the career ovalists showed surprising skills.

Jimmie Johnson, the Sprint Cup defending points champion, watched the race on television and liked what he saw. He said that in his experience, competing in wet conditions can bring out the best in drivers.

“That’s usually where I do my best work, at night and in the rain in the Rolex (series) races,” said Johnson, a veteran of the Daytona 24-hour race.

As of Wednesday, forecasters were saying that there was a 50 percent chance of rain for Saturday’s Nationwide Series race at Watkins Glen and a 40 percent chance for Sunday’s Sprint Cup race.

Could more history be written this weekend?

Not in the Sprint Cup series. NASCAR officials have torpedoed the chances for that.

NASCAR vice president Jim Hunter on Wednesday laid out the guidelines for racing on wet pavement.

“We’ll likely continue to use rain tires in Nationwide Series road course races, but not in Sprint Cup,” Hunter said. “We have the flexibility to reschedule postponed Cup races to Monday, or even Tuesday, something we can’t do with our other national series.”

That may disappoint some Sprint Cup drivers.

“I enjoyed watching it, a lot like everyone did,” Johnson said this week. “But I love racing on the dirt and the Grand Am racing I’ve done, the wet has been a lot of fun.”

Though many Canadian fans sat in the rain to watch last week, Johnson wasn’t sure that other fans would — especially at a Sprint Cup race.

“You want to put on a quality show, and I’m not sure our cars were at speed and easy enough to drive to really put on a quality show,” he said. “I spoke to Clint Bowyer and Carl Edwards and those guys, and they said they had an absolute blast. But I don’t think they put on a show for the fans. If you’re spending money to come and sit in the grandstands and watch a race, you want to see a competitive race and not a rain race where you have guys just tiptoeing around.”