Kevin Harvick Opines on NASCAR’s Wet Weather Approach, Proposes Key Pit Road Changes

As per Kevin Harvick, the only thing that limits Cup Series drivers from racing well on wet weather tires is the spray. If that is manageable, there should not be much of a problem even if the track is wet. During last weekend’s race in Loudon, NASCAR mandated that all cars should run to the end with wet weather tires and had non-competitive pit stops. If stops were made competitively after the restart, it would have been a lot more interesting as per the 2014 champion.

Rain provides a scope for strategy to come into play in any type of motorsport. However, that was not the case in Loudon since NASCAR’s pit stops were limited due to safety concerns. However, if the pit road was dried before the restart, drivers could come in under green for dry tires later on, giving way to different strategies being implemented by different teams.

“Whatever NASCAR decides is the tire that you’re on, from there on the game’s on… It sounds like a lot of the guys think if they’re on rain tires that they’re going to be able to stop and make a competitive pit stop. So I think we have to dry pit road first.” – Kevin Harvick.

What NASCAR did during last Sunday’s race was dry the track to an extent and then send the drivers out on rain tires.

However, instead of focussing on the racing surface first, NASCAR could direct their operations to dry the pit lane first. Harvick also opined on how that would have made the pit road safe for the crew members. Further changes such as mandating the crew to stay on the safe side of the wall until the cars came to a complete rest in their pit boxex could also safely promote wet weather competitive stops according to the former full-timer.

Denny Hamlin echoes Kevin Harvick’s sentiments

The 2014 Cup Series champion is not the only one who is a proponent of drying pit lane first. Denny Hamlin had the same idea. It would have given drivers a chance to switch to dry tires and take full advantage of the dry line. The Joe Gibbs Racing was one of the several racers struggling to drive on the wet tires during last Sunday’s conditions at NHMS.

“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. Maybe that should be the priority when they go back to drying the facility.” he said.

The wet weather tire experiment was still a successful one. It is now up to NASCAR to keep the competitiveness intact even in wet conditions. The strategy will play a big role in determining these types of races when that happens.