Rain dance: Nationwide drivers show adaptability, talent racing on wet track
By Lee Montgomery - Associate Editor
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
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Robert Laberge / Getty Images for NASCAR
Jacques Villeneuve drives in the rain during Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
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As Patrick Carpentier waited on the dais for the postrace news conference for the NAPA Auto Parts 200 Nationwide Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, someone told him, “Good show.”
Carpentier, who had just survived 48 laps in NASCAR’s first wet-weather race to finish second, just smiled.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t see.”
The former open-wheel driver was joking, sort of.
“Honestly, racing in the rain, you miss the whole race because you see absolutely nothing,” Carpentier said.
Well, maybe he wasn’t joking. But he had to have seen a little, for he ran in the top five most of the race and was in position to take the lead when Ron Fellows was scheduled to pit for fuel to finish the race.
Vision was only one of the problems of racing in the rain, as NASCAR and the competitors found out. Also at issue was quality of the rain tires brought to the track, the reliability of electronics inside the car, the option of choosing when to switch back to dry-weather tires, and, well, the intelligence of simply racing in the rain in the first place.
The visibility issue flared up dramatically in the closing laps of the race – and after the caution flag had flown.
Jacques Villeneuve and Joey Logano crashed after the last yellow flag was waved – and before NASCAR put a stop to the race with a red flag.
Villeneuve didn’t have a windshield wiper installed on his car, and when he slowed under caution, the rain didn’t bead off the windshield fast enough, and he slammed into Ron Hornaday.
Logano said he could only see feet in front of him when he rammed in the back of Alex Garcia under caution.
“The priority in this sport has to be our drivers, and you had a number of drivers on the radio saying they can’t see and are hydroplaning under caution,” said Dave Rogers, Logano’s crew chief. “I don’t think as a series we did a good job of listening to those, so we fell victim. Joey couldn’t see. When guys stopped in front of him, he ran into the back of them. He had no warnings that the guy was going to stop.
“I have to be honest, I had a lot of fun today. This is pretty cool. It’s the first points race in the rain. But when drivers are saying enough is enough, we need to heed that caution, and we did not today.”
Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash pointed out that all drivers were racing fine before the caution, when the cars were running at a higher speed. Balash didn’t feel the heavy rain contributed to either accident.
Logano later questioned why racing continued past the halfway point.
“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.”
David Reutimann didn’t mind racing in the rain, but he hoped NASCAR and the teams could find better solutions to help visibility.
“It’s probably not something we should do unless we come up with a better system to be able to see,” Reutimann said. “The tires worked fine. All that stuff worked OK. I don’t have a problem with that, just the lack of being able to see is the big issue, and that’s pretty dangerous. If we come up with a better scenario there’s no reason why we couldn’t do it in the future but not with what we have now.”
Carl Edwards’ Roush Fenway Racing crew tried having Edwards wipe the windshield clean with a household mop under caution. Edwards said it worked fine.
But the problems weren’t limited to the outside of the windshield. Defrosters on the inside weren’t perfect, and some drivers had to try to wipe the inside of the windshield.
“We just have to come up with some better ventilation and stuff for the windows,” driver Jason Leffler said. “As long as you keep the windows clean, the cars are great in the rain – they’re fun to race.”
Goodyear has taken a lot of heat lately for its tires, but no one was criticizing NASCAR’s official tire supplier after the Montreal race. Some wondered about the age of the tires – though Balash said Goodyear recently cycled out some older rain tires – but they were fine, drivers said.
“They were a little bit hard, but they worked really well,” Carpentier said. “Once we stopped and made [a chassis] change, we had good traction and could come off the corner decent. I have absolutely no complaint about the tires.”
Fellows said Goodyear is in a difficult spot when constructing rain tires.
“Which direction do you go?” race winner Fellows said. “If you’re going to have a rain race, do you create a possibility for options on what rain tires you use? That rain tire is pretty durable, [but] not necessarily ideal for the super heavy wet, but ideal to manage the conditions we had today up until the downpour.
“If we’re going to do this in the future, it provides Goodyear with an opportunity to get a little more creative and have a couple different
options for rain tires.”
Third-place finisher Marcos Ambrose wondered about the survival of the electronic gear inside the car with all the rain water, but no team appeared to have any failures.
“I thought for sure we were going to have electrical problems with all the water that was coming in the car,” Ambrose said, “but the only thing that got wet was me.”
Balash said NASCAR had a plan in place on how to manage the race but went on the conservative side to make sure the surface was as ready as possible.
But Balash said before the race that the decision as to when to switch back to dry tires was a work in progress. Some teams, notably Boris Said’s No Fear Racing team, thought NASCAR would allow teams to choose when to switch back to dry tires.
NASCAR then told teams the procedure to go back to dry tires would be exactly the same as when teams put on wets: Cars would be brought down pit road, teams would change tires, and cars would resume racing in the same order as when the entered the pits.
In the end, most drivers were simply happy to get the race in, instead of having to come back the next day.
“For the first time, for these guys to have a race in the rain, we actually got a race in,” Ambrose said. “That was a good thing. … It was treacherous, it was tricky, but I think all the drivers kept of the race track for the most part, and we got a race in, which is important. I think to NASCAR’s credit for not running rain races very often, that they did a pretty good job.
“Maybe if there is inclement weather again down the road, NASCAR won’t be so frightened to put us out there on wets because we got a race in. Everyone was safe, and it was a decent show, I guess. The tires held up, and the cars held up.”
Comments
3 responses to "Rain dance: Nationwide drivers show adaptability, talent racing on wet track"
robert mcleester said:
Aug 5, 2008 at 5:43 PMjoey logano has'nt been racing in the nationwide series a year yet and already he's complaining? sound like another gibbs driver?
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» Confirm Abuse ReportTom Meier said:
Aug 5, 2008 at 8:43 PMJoey is not complaining. He is just telling it the way it was. Everyone does it including your favorite driver. Leave the kid alone.
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» Confirm Abuse Reportrobert mcleester said:
Aug 6, 2008 at 9:23 PMTom,my favorite driver is not a rookie.used to be rookies did'nt open thier mouth until they had some time behind the wheel in what ever series they were driving in.now they all are experts right away? is it any wonder why nationwide races have so many cautions?
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