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February 25, 2008
Rain Wrecks Havoc
The rains in Southern California wrecked havoc at the track this weekend. First qualifying on Friday was washed out, then the Nationwide race and finally the Cup race. What a disaster for Nascar yesterday. They started the Cup race yesterday, a decision that seems extremely questionable in light of the obvious weepers that popped up on the track and a number of drivers indicating that the overall condition of the track was poor. Not surprisingly they weren't able to finish the race due to rain and moisture. What's incredible is that Nascar waited so long to make the decision to post-pone the race. It was about 11 p.m California time, 2 a.m. Eastern time before they announced that the race would be run today - a ridiculously long time to keep fans at the track and teams/drivers at the ready to re-start the race. Nascar said that they owed it to the fans at the track to try to get the track dried but at some point it should have been obvious that wasn't going to happen. In addition, there was pressure to get the teams back to North Carolina as soon as possible since they have to turn around to head back out West for Las Vegas. However, once it's past midnight Eastern time even if the teams were able to leave at some point after the race was run they would still be getting home today.
I've seen some criticism of the track, that it's evidence that there shouldn't be a race at this track at this time of year - or at all. But the reality is that the track has no control over the weather. Nor does any other track. Moisture is a problem on every track because the cars can't race when the track is wet. In addition, California isn't the only track where they can get weepers. Maybe there are things that this track could do better to prevent the problem of weepers from happening but all the track can do is try to address the problem, they can't guarantee there won't be any rain.
Posted by silverdsl at February 25, 2008 08:46 AM