Nascar in the rain

Nascar ran their first ever race in the rain. The Nationwide series ran on the circuit in Montreal. Ron fellows won. The race was called short due to visibility and standing water.

pussys

'bout damn time...how about they run a full race in the rain

first the tyre fiasco and now rain.. do their cars even have wipers or lights?

would wipers work at 180ish?

You'd probably not need them at that speed. Motorcycle helmets are like that. The helmet visor is curved so the speed helps blow the water droplets to the side or over the top.

thats what I figured. I still remember stories about a V8 vega that at 130MPH, the wipers started going on their own. do any top end racing series use wipers on the cars for rain?

Rolex? ALMS? pretty much any closed cockpit series EXCEPT nascrap yawn

That was a pretty boring race. I hated at the beginning how they kept just driving em around under yellow, waiting for the track to dry up. I know it was wet and they had dry setups and all, but man the cars were slow around there. Plus it was lame that Ambrose got the drive through.

And yeah anything that's closed top has windshield wipers. Touring/GT cars, rally cars, etc, etc.

geomiata wrote: pussys

pussies.

thanks

Lets see, NASCAR racers are heavier than F1, by a large margin. So the tires undergo different forces, especially on high banked ovals, where there;s no runoff room. So they'd have to slow down considerably. You think NASCAR is like watching the freeway in the dry? Try watching 4-5 hours of 80 mph in the rain. F1 cars slow way down and still slide all over in the rain, with HUGE downforce and wings and traction control and every electronic driving aid that money can buy. Since not racing in the rain hasn't really hurt the success of NASCAR, why consider it?

Let's ask another question. Why don't drag racers race in the rain?

From a motorcycle racer:

"The principle thing, safety wise, that differentiates superspeedways from road courses is the philosophy of dealing with out-of-control vehicles. A modern road course designer seeks to build in as much run-off as possible. This allows cars or bikes to not only decelerate with minimal damage, it also ups the chances of said vehicle to rejoin the race. Another thing that happens is that it establishes a "crash zone", which tends to isolate an incident from the rest of the race. It is very rare, therefore, to see a full course yellow in a road race. These kinds of things dictate a lot of engineering that goes into road racing. There are a number of tracks on the east coast that contain a good number of spots that are simply no-no's for passing due to their insufficient run-off. Motorcyclists are particularly wary of this kind of thing, since they tend to pay for mistakes more often with their health in addition to their checkbooks. Most AMA riders have a mental list of places you just don't want to attempt a pass on someone and therefore don't expect one in return -- a gentleman's agreement if you will. Some tracks are officially on AMA's no-wet-races list. So how is that a track can be deemed safe enough in dry conditions, but not in the wet? Two main reasons: drainage and mechanics of sliding vehicles and bodies on wet pavement -- a sliding motorcycle or rider will sometimes travel further, even from reduced speeds, than they would have if the pavement was dry.

Now, consider a big oval. Speeds are more constant and usually higher than what one would see on a road course. Much of the grip the vehicles depend on is achieved with the help of banking. And in the event of an incident, the retaining wall often bounces vehicles back to the inside, often assisted by the banking, after which a full course yellow goes out and clean-up commences. Cars are very rarely able to rejoin the race after contact with the wall. So what would happen if the pavement was wet? Let's assume the cars are equipped with sufficient rain tires, wipers, and so on. In terms of physics, the first thing that comes to my mind, is that the speeds would drop by a much smaller percentage than on a road course under similar conditions. Why? Because oval racers rely on mechanical and aero grip as a smaller percentage of total cornering forces due to banking. So, their cornering ability will be reduced by a much smaller percentage than on a flat surface. That sounds good, until you stop to consider that it will lead to cars running much closer to their dry lap times than their road racing counterparts, with the same retaining wall and increased out-of-control sliding factor. Consider also that there will be a significant reduction in ability to execute evasive maneuver to avoid an in-progress pile-up, which seems to happen often in NASCAR when a couple of cars get hung up on each other and slide along a wall, eventually rejoining the corner exit racing line with the field coming up behind them. So it seems we have a major safety issue without even considering feasibility of said rain tires, given the sustained banking forces and length of races and how it would affect TV coverage. Personally, I think it would be a crash fest, given the way NASCAR road races go, so it would be even longer."

Besides the reasons Chris gave, people go to Nascar races. Who really wants to sit out in the rain all day when they could come back tommorrow in the dry.

Many of the cars had winshield wipers, others didn't bother. They even had rear lights and brake lites. Standard equipment was a squeegee, Late in the race, standing water and visibility were the problem. t They were running into each other under caution. Actually, when the rain wasn't to heavy, the drivers did quite well, keeping the cars on the track. Many of the drivers are running at Pocono today, so they couldn't postpone it. NASCAR has been playing with this idea for some time.

I liked the idea, and it was only under caution for the most part due to seasoned road racers (coughcoughPapiscoughcough) running off the road. I found it pretty exciting, I mean NASCAR on a road course in the rain? That just sounds like fun lol.

And to those calling them pussies for calling the race due to standing water and visibility....I believe there is one instance at the 12 Hours of Sebring in the early 90s of them red flagging a race due to standing water and visibility issues....FIA-GT race at Sebring in 97, E36 M3 I may have just caught on to something...it only happens at Sebring!

Chris_V wrote: F1 cars slow way down and still slide all over in the rain, with HUGE downforce and wings and traction control and every electronic driving aid that money can buy.

No TC, ABS, engine braking.......

It got so bad that at times you couldn't see the cars. Even the experienced rain drivers said it was rediculous to continue.

The windshield wipers often stood straight up on the straightaways, according to one of the drivers. Those who didn't have them ran into another problem though. Sure, the rain-x and speed helped shed the water, but they had oil getting sprayed on their windshields. The wipers were crucial and not everbody had them.

I say, hats off to NASCAR for trying something in a race that they had never done before. Sure, the cars were like 20 seconds slower, but everything looks stupid-fast in the rain anyway. I really enjoyed the racing part. And lots of kudos to the drivers for not crashing 2 seconds after the green fell the first time. The drivers really kept their cool. All those other series that race in the rain usually have a major wreck in the first turn as everyone scrambles for position (not knocking other series - I can't imagine how tough rain racing is).

Who was driving that blue STP car? Man, that guy just kept running away from everyone! He showed what these beasties can really do in the wet!

Oh, and how did the car builders know to install a windshield wiper in the cars anyway? That HAD to be put there for this occasion, right? They wouldn't build these cars for years and just install them for the heck of it, would they? Until now, they just canceled the race and sent everybody home.

They did run in the rain a long time ago. They were doing a race in Japan on the Suzuka track back in the late 90's. they did have wipers, defrost and brake lights. But that was for only one race.

Volksroddin wrote: They did run in the rain a long time ago. They were doing a race in Japan on the Suzuka track back in the late 90's. they did have wipers, defrost and brake lights. But that was for only one race.

That was just testing. They weren't racing. But yeah, they gave it a go.

They also did some practicing early on as well in the US, if I remember. They showed a lot of pictures of guys sliding through gravel lol.

confuZion3 wrote: Who was driving that blue STP car? Man, that guy just kept running away from everyone! He showed what these beasties can really do in the wet!

Marcos Ambrose, Aussie V8 Supercars (or whatever it's called these days) champ...

I am very impressed with him...

They ran a rain race back in the '60's I believe it was, this wasn't their first.

I'm sure they've been testing wet weather tires and so on for a while. They prolly got the weather report that it'd be raining up there all week. Had goodyear ship a ton of these tires up there, told the teams to install running lights, and wipers just in case.

confuZion3 wrote:

Volksroddin wrote: Japan on the Suzuka track back in the late 90's. they did have wipers, defrost and brake lights. But that was for only one race.

That was just testing. They weren't racing. But yeah, they gave it a go.

Um, yeah... these were the same tires. I don't mean the same design, these were the SAME TIRES they produced for that testing and race, that got used for qualifying and then the rest got shelved.

The tires were in storage ever since. You guys complaining about 2005 build dates on your Kumhos got nothin' on these guys!

The announcers said that the tires had been sitting around since 2001. If they weren't a hard compound before, they were now.