NASCAR had an eventful day at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway on Sunday, with the race temporarily interrupted by rain. When racing resumed, drivers had to switch to wet weather tires, as mandated by NASCAR.
The innovation is somewhat new in the sport and, as a result, the operation was a little disjointed.
NASCAR was making all the calls on tires, rather than individual racing teams. That made for a chaotic day for drivers, who could relay information about their tires even though they weren’t necessarily free to change tires.
The governing body explained after the race that the goal is to eventually move toward those decisions being in the hands of the teams. It’s just not something NASCAR feels is ready to happen right away.
“I mean once we get back to the R&D center we start downloading exactly how this race unfolded,” NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said, via FOX Sports’ Bob Pockrass. “If you think about it, we’ve only got maybe four data points. We ran the trucks at Martinsville, the All-Star race with the Cup cars this year, at Richmond with the Cup cars and now here, which is one of the faster short ovals that we’ve run on. So we’ll get back and we’ll look at all the things that transpired today.”
There was one point in the race where certain portions of the track were drying faster than others. That made for some dicey driving on the wet tires, which wear down much quicker on a dry surface.
It was plain to see that drivers were trying to keep their tires wet, shifting to the inside portion of the track during cautions because water had pooled there.
NASCAR will evaluate what the optimal balance is for wet weather and changing conditions.
“And if we should have put on drys, but the more we looked at it I think we stayed on wets, (which) was the right decision to end the race,” Sawyer said.
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