RICHMOND, Va. – For years NASCAR has been faced with the dilemma of the show must go on, while Mother Nature insisted on raining on the stock car parade.
Before a group effort between the sanctioning body, Goodyear and the race teams to develop a wet-weather tire, no one could have imagined completing 300 miles under the conditions encountered at Richmond Raceway on Sunday night.
Rather than waiting until the wee hours of Monday morning to determine a winner in the Toyota Owners 400, drivers took the green flag at 7:31 p.m.—just 30-minutes after the advertised time—and Denny Hamlin was celebrating in Victory Lane before 11.
“That was different for sure, but this is what it was designed for,” Hamlin said. “It got us back on track earlier.
“It is unbelievable that we were able to run a little bit in the wet weather, and a little bit in the dry, and we ended up coming out ahead.”
Hamlin came out ahead with the win, but Goodyear’s ability to outfit the cars with wet-weather tires allowed the entire industry to benefit. Fans at Richmond were treated to one of the best races in years at a facility that was being chided for falling short of its “Action Track” nickname.
The current broadcast partner, FOX Sports, which scheduled the race during prime time on its main network for Easter evening, had the perfect vehicle for sports fans to tune in following the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Elite 8 basketball games.
Finally, the teams and auxiliary personnel, who work behind the scenes to produce the show, were able to return to work on Monday to prepare for this weekend’s activities at Martinsville Speedway.
“This is a vision that Mr. (Jim) France has had for three or four years now,” NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “He tasked the R&D Center and Goodyear to come up with a tire that we could run on short ovals. The credit goes to the guys at the R&D Center and Goodyear for being able to get that tire.
“The positive was we were able to get the race started maybe 15 minutes late where five years ago, we would have been an hour to an hour-and-a-half where we could have gotten the race started.”
With intermittent rain forecast from early afternoon into the evening, the traditional challenges of drying not only the track but pit road would generally result in long delays. By the time it took crews to dry the track, a new burst of showers would negate the progress.
The 18-inch wet weather tire had previously been used last May during the All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway and again at the Chicago Street Course in July. Goodyear started the wet weather project with the previous generation of Cup car on 15-inch tires. They ran the compound in April 2021 at Martinsville and one month later at Richmond. Goodyear held a wet test with the new tire at Bristol in February.
Each team was equipped with four sets of wet-weather radial tires to start the race at Richmond. But as the weather cleared, teams were changed to the regular compound during the competition caution on Lap 30.
“Wet weather tire performance was exactly as expected in the damp conditions at the start of the race,” said Greg Stucker, Goodyear’s director of racing. “The grip level was good and tires helped the track get dry quickly, enabling the change to slicks at the competition caution.
“Tire appearance of the wets when they came off the cars showed us 30 laps was the right range for those conditions.”
While the track quickly dried, that wasn’t the case for the pits. NASCAR elected to institute non-competitive pit stops where drivers entering the pit road would maintain their positions through the caution to the restart to decrease the prospect for accidents with the cars or the crews.
“All-in-all a huge success with the wet weather tires,” Sawyer added. “We’re looking forward to getting back and downloading the things we learned from this, the things that we need to get better.
“We want to work hard to be able to continue to add the competitive pit stops. Not being able to have them in the first stage there was something we want to get back into the competition. We don’t want to be in the middle of having to call when they can put tires on and when they cannot. Still some learnings to go on our side there.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
