Last Sunday’s race at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway yielded some interesting racing after the promotion decided to run the final stint on wet weather tires. NASCAR made it mandatory for all cars to run on that compound and because of that, the pit stops became non-competitive. Speaking about that, NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt Jr. recently revealed why that was the case on the Dale Jr Download podcast.
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Nothing is more important in motorsports than the safety of the personnel. Under those damp conditions, competitive pit stops might have seen drivers lose control on the pit road. That would have been highly dangerous. Pit road accidents have happened in the past and on occasion, lives have been lost. So it makes sense for NASCAR to be cautious since drivers were still unfamiliar with the alternate compounds.
“You have crewmen out on pit road changing tires on other cars. Gas cans, fuel man, all of those things could be disrupted. You could have spills, fire,” the two-time Xfinity Series champion explained.
Is a pit road safety the only thing keeping NASCAR from letting teams have full reign of wet-weather tires at ovals? 🦺
"I feel like that's really the last hurdle for us." pic.twitter.com/oOXXZkjd1I
— Dirty Mo Media (@DirtyMoMedia) June 25, 2024
Denny Hamlin is not a fan of non-competitive pitstops
While it was imperative to keep safety the priority, some believe that the race should not have been restarted if the pit road was not safe. One such critic was, Denny Hamlin.
The Joe Gibbs Racing star struggled to get going in the wet conditions. He failed to run on the fastest line and was a sitting duck during the final stage as cars picked him off one by one. In the end, the 43-year-old was only able to finish P24 despite having won the second stage.
“If pit road is not safe, that’s why we had non-competitive pit stops, then you shouldn’t restart the race until pit road is safe. Do whatever drying you need to do to pit lane and make that safe,” – Denny Hamlin.
Despite such complaints, several drivers came out of their cars happy with how the racing was in wet conditions. It was a landmark moment for NASCAR and certainly something they will be looking to implement more of when the weather is not ideal.
