The Rain Tire Debate: Post Montreal

Last week, I was watching the NASCAR Nationwide qualifying show on Speed and they were offering a moment to reminisce about the NAPA Auto Parts 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. It was either Larry McReynolds or Jeff Hammond (Forgive me if my memory hasn't remained sharp to recall for certain after a week but I'm about 80% sure it was Jeff Hammond) provided some personal commentary about the Nationwide cars racing in the rain during the final laps of the August 30th race. During the telecast, one of the legendary crew chiefs turned TV analyst expressed their disgust with NASCAR not calling the race once the track got wet and said the racing in the rain would never work in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series. Respecting their opinions, as a fan I could sure argue against a decision to end an event when the technology exists to run the race to its true conclusion. Besides, by the way the ended with Carl Edwards (a driver from a short oval track background) claiming victory over the race's dominator Marcus Ambrose on the final corner of the final raced lap would have never been possible without the brilliant work of Goodyear and NASCAR's Nationwide series directors. It's a shame that NASCAR's Sprint Cup series hasn't considered the proposition of being able to provide a competitive and entertaining spectacle to the fans.

He continued to cite the wild road course frenzy to the conditions created by the rain and the belief that the cars were so uncontrollable to that these drivers were unable to race cleanly. Really? I've watched a multitude of road race in NASCAR in perfectly dry, sunny climate and drivers still manage to find ways of playing bumper tag in the final laps. In fact, all but 2 of the 2009 NAPA Auto Parts 200 race's 11 cautions flew under dry track conditions. Please, don't underestimate the greediness of a race car driver at the race's end. The 2009 field was packed with talent drivers. Road race pros wanting to win on their own turf, Nationwide series regulars wanting to secure high points paying positions, and Cup series regular doing likewise but also seeking to fill their trophy cases with another conquest.

While this is my opinion, I understand that NASCAR crew chiefs has never been too accepting of road course racing in the first place. Many Sprint Cup crew chiefs would prefer if the two races at Infineon and Waltkins Glen could be stricken from the schedule. Being more dependent on driver's road racing skill, a crew chief needs to look at the car and race much differently then their accustomed ovals. It might be easy to assume that many groups in NASCAR tend not to react well to change. But then again, NASCAR has certainly been doing so many things right in the past 61 years that some are probably afraid that little changes can ruin the formula. The COT car in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series might be a key item supporting this viewpoint. However, there have also been cases where changes to the racing has proven to stimulate the sport (ie. the lapped car free pass).

Q & A With Canadian Sports Car Racing Ace Ron Fellows

2008 provided one of the most thrilling races in Canadian auto racing which . Perhaps just short in significance to the inaugural Canadian Grand Prix where Canada's Formula 1 great Gilles Villeneuve brought his Ferrari, last year's NASCAR Nationwide race another great Canadian auto racing moment. Competing against the best of NASCAR stock car racing, the technical street course, and powerful weather elements, through this monsoon-like downpour rose three-time 24 hour of Le Mans champion Ron Fellows taking victory of the 2008 NAPA Auto Parts 200 on Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Having won 5 times in NASCAR competition just across the border in Watkins Glen, New York, an excited Ron Fellows celebrated around his #5 Godaddy.com Chevrolet that the stout team of JR Motorsports provided for the weekend.

In a special honour for this auto racing reporter, defending NAPA Auto Parts 200 winner Ron Fellows kindly agreed to answer some questions about his career. I welcome you to read what I hope are viewed as insightful questions:



1. Having raced in the rain last year at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, if the rain package were fitted for Sprint Cup cars at Watkins Glen this year do you think it would have provided an entertaining race?

Definitely outfitting the Sprint Cup cars for a rain race isn’t any different than the Nationwide Series cars. It would certainly be entertaining as the Sprint Cup cars have 150 more horsepower than an NNS car! NASCAR has yet to decide whether to run the “big show” in the rain on a road course, and I don’t know the reasoning behind it.



2. What does it mean to drive for for JR Motorsports in the Nationwide road races again in 2009? Did the win at Montreal last year make up for that Busch race at Watkins Glen that Dale Earnhardt Jr stole in 1999?

To drive for Dale Jr. and Rick Hendrick is a great honour. And having won in Montreal with the JRM team last year, was a great thrill. I said then that if I didn’t drive another race, I would be satisfied with what I have accomplished in my career. Their team is great fun to be around. I feel like a kid at Christmas. The team is just so well organized, and with some great personnel. And it definitely makes up for the win that got away in 1999! I think...



3. Winning all 6 of your NASCAR wins on road courses, would you like to have more stock car racing opportunities on ovals?

The media continuously talks about the road course ringers – good bad and indifferent. But I’m proud to be the only one that has managed to win any NASCAR races. The reality is, that a team committing to a driver who’s in his 5th decade – with little oval experience – is likely not going to happen for me. Would I like to do more? Absolutely. And I now have the time!



4. Your racing career was obviously built on determination as much as on talent. From the time you raced Formula cars to the international success of winning the 24-hour of Le Mans and your NASCAR victories, could you explain one or several things keys to motivation as you climbed to the highest apex of auto racing?

Thanks. It’s a number of factors. Obviously believing in your ability and proving it on the race track is one. The other factor is convincing corporate supporters that you are worthy of their investment. I have been very fortunate that some of the people that have helped provide career advancement opportunities for me, have become great friends. Bob and Helen McGraw of AER Manufacturing and Jim O’Donnell, former President of Mackenzie Financial, helped get me to a position where I was eventually hired by Herb Fishel at General Motors. From the time I began racing cars at 18 or 19 years old, to the point where I became a decently paid sports car driver, was more than 15 years! I’m not sure I could do it again!!



5. On the same weekend as the Nationwide series race in Montreal, the your past colleagues of Corvette Racing are running at Mosport with the American Le Mans series. Firstly, do you believe this was a poor circumstance for Canadian race fans to choose between two top racing series on home soil? Secondly, what are your feelings about the new GT2 Chevrolet Corvette?

Having two major league car racing events on the same weekend, just hours apart on the highway, is a scheduling screw-up for sure. It’s an absolute shame that race fans have to choose one over the other. But it is what it is, and maybe in 2010 things will be different.

The GT2 class Corvette C6.R, is a work of art. The Pratt & Miller team have done an incredible job with this new entry and it’s absolutely the right move for Corvette. We want to race against the best production based sports cars – like Porsche, Ferrari and BMW. Although about 5 or 6 seconds per lap slower than GT1, it’s still racing, and it’s a much bigger field.



Ron Fellows returns this weekend in the #5 Chevrolet for JR Motorsports. I pass my thanks to Ron Fellows as well as a special thanks to Lynda Fellows for making this article possible.

Rain washes out Sprint Cup race at Waltkins Glen. Where are the rain tires?

Photo provided by Ford Media


For the second week in a row, the Sunday feature race for NASCAR will be running on the first day of the work week. The Heluva Good! at the Glen road course race at Watkins Glen for the NASCAR Sprint Cup series will start Monday at noon. With Watkins Glen being a road course, the delay for the race is highlighted by the fact that NASCAR had rain tires available for several previous years. As we would learn watching the ESPN broadcast of the Nationwide race on Saturday, Goodyear did bring rain tires but only for the Nationwide series cars. In the television booth, NASCAR's president Mike Helton took a few minutes to explain that it was "a business decision" not to use Goodyear rain tires during the NASCAR Sprint Cup series race activities. He did not elaborate specifically but it left me wondering what resulted in that business decision.

One of the more plausible thoughts relates to Goodyear's logistical abilities to provide an sufficient tires for the longer Cup series race. However, road course race strategy would justify that only one more set of rain tires per car would be needed (if even that many). The Sprint Cup cars run only 8 scheduled laps more than the Nationwide series variants. However, with the Nationwide series race run under dry conditions, the question is whether those Nationwide tires could be been converted to run on the Sprint Cup cars. For the steel wheels themselves, wheel size and stud patterns are identical. For many race tracks, in attempt to save time and money needed developing proper rubber compounds for NASCAR, Goodyear would frequently arrive with the same race tire for Nationwide and Sprint Cup series for race weekend at a single track. This was even allowed to continue with the Sprint Cup's fundamentally different Car of Tomorrow (COT) for multiple oval races. Therefore, it should be feasible to fit rain tires to the Sprint Cup series machines. Goodyear spokesperson has commented on the Nascar.com that the company is confident that the current package would work if NASCAR would elect to employ them in the top series.

The Montreal race at Circuit de Gilles Villeneuve was one of the most exciting Nationwide events in 2008. On that day, NASCAR was initially hesitant to drop the green flag but found that those fears were largely without basis. Of course there were a few cars that lost traction but that is common even during dry weather road races. In fact, many of the NASCAR oval track regulars were surprised at the minimal learning curve needed to run these heavy Nationwide stock cars in the rain. While the rain was halted past the halfway point when the rain turned to a monsoon, cars raced skillfully through a steady downpour for more than an hour. Canadian Ron Fellows won a thrilling home soil victory that year in his GoDaddy.com Chevrolet as fellow Canadian and open wheel transplant Patrick Carpentier came home second. A big race for Canada in NASCAR, it was also a significant event for road course specialists (so-called Road course ringers) as they snatched four of the five top finishing positions. While this point may be resulting in a very thin conspiracy theory, might NASCAR and regular championship contending teams fear rain tires could allow important Sprint Cup series races to fall in the hands of road course ringers? It should be noted that NASCAR regulars such as Juan Pablo Monytona and Marcus Ambrose (who came close to winning the rain-soaked Montreal race) came from road racing backgrounds, favoured for victory as much as dry weather. Also, the one conclusion that could be drawn from the splendid Nationwide race at Montreal last year was that race car drivers throughout NASCAR are capable to almost instantly adapting to the unique wet weather race. Camping World Truck series driver Ron Hornaday as well as young oval track ace Carl Edwards placed fourth and sixth on the final running order.

As a third thought, perhaps the Sprint Cup's COT car isn't prepared for racing in the rain. The older style Sprint Cup cars were fitted with wet weather racing equipment (treaded tires, windshield wiper, rear signal light, and defogger system) since Suzuka, Japan exhibition of 1996. The closest this package came to racing in the NASCAR Cup series came in 1997 when the non-points race on the Suzuka road course ran almost completely in the rain. With exception to one practice session held at Watkins Glen ages ago, Cup cars never ran a competitive lap in wet weather on North American soil. This historical lack of demand for rain tires and the costly addition of rain equipment has likely contributed to its exclusion for 2009 COT vehicles.

Back to the 2009 running of the Heluva Good! at the Glen, the weather forecast for Watkins Glen, New York hints strongly at the same rain and thunderstorms which postponed Sunday's planned running. With this likely not to be the only fan voice to urge the usage of rain tires for the Sprint Cup road course races, we shouldn't be surprised if NASCAR, ever desperate to remain on the fan's side, might provide some requirements to the Sprint Cup COT cars for 2010.