Elton Sawyer believes NASCAR made the right call by not calling the Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway despite severe weather in the area. NASCAR’s vice president of competition spoke to reporters after the race and explained why they continued the race after a long weather delay.
“We work closely with the National Weather folks as well as the folks here at Speedway Motorsports. All of those weather conditions were way south of the speedway,” Sawyer said, per Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports. “We felt like we were in a good place. Once the rain passed, it looked like we had clear skies behind us, which we did, and we were able to get the race resumed.”
The USA Today 301 began around 2 p.m. ET and lasted six hours due to the two-hour weather delay. Once the rain cleared, the drivers completed on a damp track with rain tires, the second time in NASCAR history a points-paying race used the newly-developed tires. When the race was all said and done, Christopher Bell came away with the victory.
“You never know how this thing is going to shake out whenever you change so many things like that and have adverse conditions,” Bell said after the race. “I personally love adverse conditions because you’re always trying to think outside the box. When we went back out [on wet weather tires after the red flag delay] I was feeling around and it felt like the normal Loudon groove was really, really slippery so I tried to just run down or up, but [crew chief] Adam [Lambert] really put the tune on this thing and it was running good.”
Elton Sawyer enjoyed seeing the rain tires in action
Sawyer also praised Goodyear for making the rain tires. “Well I think the way we started this whole wet weather tire process was basically we wanted to get our races started on time, and it really played into our hand yesterday getting the Xfinity race started on time,” Sawyer said. “And to get our races back to green as quick as possible if we had a delay, which we had today. Kudos to Goodyear.”
While speaking to reporters after the race, Bell talked about how the race changed once the rain came into play. “It was literally the tale of two completely different events,” he said. “Obviously, the rain completely shook up what was going on track, and in the dry, we started off really well. I was able to get the lead in the first stage, and then Martin really came on there in Stage 2.”
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