Both Saturday’s Xfinity Series race and Sunday’s Cup Series race were impacted by rain and the use of wet weather tiresFred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
NASCAR deemed its latest wet-weather tire trials a “success” despite still being early in the process, as the sanctioning body felt like it had “successful examples of both scenarios” this past weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, according to Aaron Bearden of RACER. Both Saturday’s Xfinity Series race and Sunday’s Cup Series race were impacted by rain and the use of wet weather tires. NASCAR SVP/Competition Elton Sawyer on Sunday said, “I think the way we started this whole wet weather tire process was, basically, we wanted to get our races started on time. It really played into our hand yesterday to get the Xfinity race started on time, and to get our races back to green as quick as possible if we had a delay, which we had today.” He added, “Kudos to Goodyear. This was Jim France’s vision of what wet weather tires could do. ... Our fans that bought a ticket got to see some great, exciting racing.” NASCAR’s unique wet weather format “still leaves many questions.” Series officials have “yet to allow teams to choose when to take slicks or wets, mandating stops for either.” Bearden wrote it can “make for a jarring visual for fans of other series” like F1 and the NTT IndyCar Series, where changing for wet or dry tires is often part of an active race. NASCAR claims it is “being cautious as it continues to learn.” Sawyer: “There’s still some things that we’re learning through this process. In all honesty, we’d like to be out of the tire business. We’d like to just turn that over to the teams. ... Eventually we’ll get there.” While the current format “has its flaws,” NASCAR still feels it has “been successful in early trials.” Without wet weather tires Sunday’s race would “have been done with 82 laps to go.” Instead, it reached the scheduled distance and even made it through overtime (
RACER, 6/23).
