NASCAR’s wet weather racing exploit was flawed, but ‘so much fun’

At Richmond earlier this season, the Cup series had its first experience utilizing wet weather tires on shorter ovals as teams began the race with them and ran the first 30 laps until the track dried.

It was just a taste, but most observers – and many drivers – found the racing on the treaded wet tires better and more entertaining than on the slicks used for the remainder of the race.

Sunday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway saw an even bigger opportunity and got an even bigger payoff.

The race was red flagged after 219 laps when heavy rain and thunderstorms moved into the area of the track. Tyler Reddick appeared ready to claim a victory thanks to a gutsy decision not to pit during stage break as his 23XI Racing team hoped the rain would come before the end of the race.

They were right but likely didn’t bet on NASCAR deciding to wait out a nearly two-hour, 15-minute delay and then run the remainder of the race on wet weather tires with nightfall approaching.

In all honesty, it was hard to find anyone – media member, fan or driver – who did.

An unlikely restart

Yet, once NASCAR got the standing water off the track, it allowed teams to change to wet weather tires while parked on pit road in their stalls and also allowed them to add fuel.

When the race returned to green with what turned out to be 77 laps remaining, “the fun” – as race winner Christopher Bell put it – began.

Drivers moved all over the track in multiple lanes, and even created some new ones like the apron. It appeared the only place a driver didn’t dare go was the infield, although a couple looked at times as if they might.

There were a handful of cautions for wrecks, a couple wrecks under caution and even an overtime restart.

Bell ended up winning the race – not exactly a shock winner as he had won on the track a day earlier in the Xfinity Series race and owned a previous Cup victory on the 1.058-mile oval.

However, a quick examination of the results illustrated one glaring truth – the decision to continue the race while the track was still damp drastically changed the results.

Only three of the drivers who would have finished in the top 10 had the race not restarted, were around when it did end after 305 laps – and one of them was the winner.

The two drivers best in position to challenge Bell on the final…