Holding a Pretty Wheel: NASCAR’s Tire Call Was the Silver Lining at Loudon

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, the 2024 USA Today 301 would have ended with 82 laps to go, after the skies opened and dumped torrential rains over New Hampshire Motor Speedway just after the conclusion of lap 219.

But not this time.

The story actually starts the day before, when rain washed out Cup Series qualifying and all but a few minutes of practice (keep that in mind) before the NASCAR Xfinity Series race. The track still damp, NASCAR made the decision to start that race on wet-weather tires for a couple of reasons.

One, a full field of cars racing at speed will finish off track drying quickly. Two, New Hampshire doesn’t have lights thanks to a local ordinance, so time was of the essence. 

The track was very nearly dry, and after 10 laps, teams came to pit road and bolted on racing slicks. That was that and the race finished under normal conditions. But NASCAR and tire manufacturer had a full field’s worth of tires to study and learn from.

A couple of things about wet-weather tires: they’ve been an option on road courses for a while, but the design for ovals is newer. They’re not designed for racing in even a light rain, but rather for a track that’s free of standing water but not dry enough for slicks.

Calling them rain or wet-weather tires is a misnomer.

Once cars start producing rooster tails, it’s too wet for them because that impacts visibility even with windshield wipers — think driving on the highway during wet weather and how visibility is affected even at relatively lower speeds. This crash happened as a direct result of a track too wet to race on:

Data on wet-weather tires on ovals is limited because there haven’t been a lot of good opportunities to test them. 

Also, they aren’t a viable option on every track, but have been looked at as a solution for some short and flat ovals. Higher-speed intermediates would still be unsafe in wet conditions.

Back to New Hampshire.

Sunday’s Cup race started a half hour early, but that wasn’t enough to avoid a line of strong storms that rolled through the region in the late afternoon. The rains came with lightning, so while many criticized NASCAR for not putting on the wet-weather tires when the rain started off lightly, the precipitation wasn’t the only concern. The line of storms brought with it tornado warnings as well as rain and lightning. The rain also went from light to an absolute deluge in a blink, so it wasn’t a bad call to hold off at that point. 

Many expected an announcement fairly quickly to end the race. It was past the official distance and darkness was going to fall before there was hope of getting the track dry.

But while many fans took to social media to complain that NASCAR had tires it didn’t seem to want to use, NASCAR was watching the radar. 

The band of storms was fast moving and clear behind. So the decision was made to wait it out. Once it cleared out, track dryers roared onto the racing surface. 

If they had to get the surface dry enough to race on slicks, it would have been a lost cause. Even a little dampness with regular tires is too much. Things like this happen (and the track looked dry for this one. It wasn’t):

Each team had four sets of rain tires.

In the Xfinity race, the treaded tires wore out quickly, showing significant wear after just 10 laps, so there was some trepidation about whether they’d last long enough to finish the race. However, the track on Saturday had been significantly drier — almost ready to swap out for regular tires. The tires generate more heat with the friction of a dry track and wear faster.

This time, the effort was to get any standing water off the racing surface so that cars weren’t putting out plumes of mist behind them. It didn’t have to be dry, just dry enough. There was enough daylight for that.

NASCAR told teams to bolt on the treaded tires and get ready to race. There was a moment of worry on the pace laps when Corey LaJoie spun, because the cars hadn’t come up to speed yet, but the green flag came out and the race restarted.

And something remarkable happened.

Suddenly Loudon, which gets criticized as a one-groove track, had about 42 different lines. Drivers had to search for lines that were fast and also damp enough to keep the heat out of the tires. The apron was as raceable as the high groove. Cars fanned out four and five wide.

At Loudon.

And fans got to see the entire race they paid for.

There were a few cautions as drivers figured out this strange new breed of racing, and NASCAR was strict about tire changes on pit stops, dictating when teams changed to a new set and that they had to be wet-weather tires. Even as the main groove dried out, the track never got to a place where slicks would have been safe, so that part is understandable.

While some called for NASCAR to let teams decide when to change tires, the decision to regulate it more tightly came down to needing consistent data. This was the first real rest of this tire and this race plan, to finish a race on these tires instead of merely using them to start. Having consistency in when they were changed and how long cars ran on them allowed for consistency in studying the data.

At some point in the future, NASCAR may very well turn teams loose to figure things out, but the first time was not the right time for it. There were — and are —still too many safety questions.

But everything that might have gone wrong … didn’t.

There were a couple of on-track incidents that might not have happened on a dry track, but it was hardly a wreck fest. The tires held up well beyond the 10 laps of the previous day. Drivers were careful about managing them, finding the wetter spots, especially under caution, to keep them from overheating.

But there was passing. There was strategy. There was racing.

And NASCAR could have called it two hours earlier. 

Bolting on the wet-weather tires the minute a light sprinkle started and turning the field loose in a free-for-all to beat the downpour would not have been a good decision, even without the lightning danger to fans and crews. 

Many people were too quick to criticize, though. NASCAR didn’t throw the red flag with no plan. Officials knew the storms would move through and the knew how dry was dry enough to give the tires the right kind of real-world test.

They passed with flying colors. Drivers praised the decision to finish the race. The fans who waited out the rain were rewarded instead of simply drenched.

Are there kinks to work out? Of course. Tire tests don’t replicate race conditions (especially when a wet track is required because the weather is the weather), so everyone came in basically blind. Now there’s clearer vision.

Fans who wanted a free-for-all with teams and drivers running amok are probably a little disappointed in how structured the experiment went. NASCAR could have done a few things differently, too, starting with keeping fans informed of why they didn’t immediately go to the wet tire and explaining that they did want to use the tire, but also to do it right.

Next time will be better. And there will be a next time, because this time worked.