“I Thought They Were Crazy”: How NASCAR Turned the Biggest Skeptics Around With New Hampshire Gamble

A few months back, when rain clouds halted a Cup Series race, officials would normally call it a day and end the race. But they did not do that last Sunday. As storm clouds passed over Loudon, New Hampshire, they decided not to let the weather bully them and chose to run on wet weather tires.

When NASCAR announced that it had instructed Goodyear to develop wet weather tires for oval tracks, not everyone met the idea with a lot of optimism. Among those naysayers was Adam Stevens, the crew chief of Christopher Bell. 82 laps was all it took for the promotion and the tire maker to change his stand. By the end of the race, Bell had emerged successful after a truly exhilarating experience.

The reason behind the success of the tires was largely due to their proper usage. Officials had been perfect in deciding how wet the track had to be for the tires to work and executed things in line with that. Stevens said in the post-race press meet, “I was probably the biggest skeptic when they said they wanted to run wets at the ovals. I thought they were crazy, and they proved me wrong for sure.”

“They did a really good job of coming up with a plan methodically of how wet was too wet … and they figured out once they got the water off the race track that you can run it, and that was probably the best way to dry the track, too.” He went on to heap praise on Jim France for being the visionary who first thought of such a novel concept and thanked him for pushing the limits of the game.

What drivers said about the experience of racing on wet weather tires

The Magic Mile spread out to almost six wide at certain points when the race resumed with wets. Drivers were cruising around constantly altering lanes trying to figure out the spots that worked best for them.

Kyle Larson, for one, enjoyed this entire process. He said on the USA Network, “It was fun. You know, I think when it’s like that, I think that’s why you see a lot of the dirt racers kind of migrate to the front.”

Chris Buescher said, “Oh, ultimately, yeah (it was a success). I mean, we’ve finished our race. I think it worked.” With more of their colleagues expressing thoughts on similar lines, NASCAR’s SVP of Competition, Elton Sawyer, couldn’t be more pleased with the job. He promised that the promotion would work upward from here and try to make the product even better.