Are we prepared for racing on a wet weather track on Sunday at Martinsville Speedway?
“Are you saying it’s going to rain on Sunday? Are you on that boat?”
That was Ryan Blaney, with a laugh, and yes, everyone is making room on the contingency boat for a planned race day that has anywhere from a 40 to 60 percent chance of scattered precipitation with a forecasted deluge on Monday.
Sure, Sunday could go off without a hitch but there are wet weather tires on the premises just in case. And note, they are ‘wet weather tires’ and not ‘rain tires’ since they are intended for use after it stops raining and not during the storm.
For one, NASCAR doesn’t want fans and participants sitting and standing in the weather but also they are merely intended to shorten rain delays while resuming competition on a still damp racing surface.
If they are used, Martinsville will join North Wilkesboro, Richmond Raceway and New Hampshire Motor Speedway as short track races contested on the super soft gummy treaded tires.
But as Blaney points out, Martinsville would produce a new dynamic when it comes to racing on a damp surface.
“We’ve had some experience with it the last couple of years,” Blaney said. “It is always a little bit different when you go to these new places that it could potentially rain at that you haven’t been to in the rain like here, and I think this would be the first place that we’ve gone, if it does rain, of like concrete and asphalt surfaces.”
To his point, Martinsville has concrete corners and asphalt straights.
“So it’s like, concrete always dries faster than asphalt, so the corners are gonna get dry really quick,” Blaney said. “I think the truck race last year was that way, or two years ago, and the corners were completely dry and the straightaways still had a little bit of water on them, so how does that play into it? It could get exciting.”
That isn’t to say that Blaney is rooting for bad weather but the novelty intrigues him.
“Do I hope it rains Sunday,” Blaney said hypothetically. “No, I like this place enough in the dry that I hope it’s just more of a traditional race but you’ve got to be prepared for everything.
“I don’t know if it will change up much. You still want to go for the concrete and it will be a little bit easier to see what concrete patches are dry. Sometimes it’s hard to tell on asphalt. The asphalt is dark and it’s hard to make that judgment, but with concrete you’ll be able to tell right away. It will be the same for everybody, so you just hope you do it better than everybody else.”
Christopher Bell, who is already on the pole for a dry track, said he fully embraces a wet weather track if it comes down to it. He’s shown to be proficient at reading the track in ways that is similar to his dirt racing background.
“If you’re racing in the rain, it resets the track every lap,” Bell said. “It resets your driving style and your set up. The rain tires have been really good to me, racing in wet or damp conditions, and I’ve been one of the leading contenders every time we’ve done it.
“I welcome rain anytime we get the opportunity to do it and I hope it happens tomorrow.”
Chase Briscoe, who shares that dirt background with his teammate Bell, said he was ‘super torn’ by the prospects of racing on a damp track.
“I feel like the rain is always a strong suit for me,” Briscoe said. “Anytime we go racing in the rain, I end up running way better than we would otherwise but this is a track where I said ‘I don’t know if I want the rain’ because I just want it to go normal. Truthfully, rain would not hurt my feelings either only because I feel like I run better in it than the average guy out there.”
Historically speaking, racing in the rain or even on a damp track was the domain of road course racing but NASCAR CEO Jim France has made a push over the past half-decade of taking this practice to short ovals at first.
Larson, who has done both, says oval wet weather racing is largely more repeatable. He says conditions change too much from lap to lap on a wet road course. He’s open to it on Sunday or Monday night though.
“I feel like I’ve been good at it when we have done it,” Larson said. “It’s all about finding grip. And really, your car has to be good too.”
All told, Bell wants fans to know that even though it looks similar on TV to a dry weather line, it’s anything but.
“It’s surprising because I go back and watch these races on TV and watching it, it doesn’t look different,” Bell said. “But behind the wheel, I promise you that it’s tremendously different. The difference is that you are sliding around a lot.
“We’re managing wheel spin and lateral slide in their cars and I don’t know. I enjoy that and it seems to be successful to me. It surprises me how normal it looks on TV but the way we drive the car is different.”
