NASCAR lauded for weather management

HAMPTON, Ga. -- The house was packed Sunday at Atlanta Motor Speedway -- despite weather that had threatened for more than two days -- and millions more watched the NASCAR Winston Cup NAPA 500 on NBC Sports.

	Umbrellas and car covers were the order of the day early in Atlanta. Credit: Autostock

But according to several Winston Cup drivers, unless you were present it was impossible to fully appreciate the job NASCAR and its corps of officials did in completing 76 percent of the scheduled laps, or 248 of 325, before the checkered flag fell on Kurt Busch under caution for rain.

"It's their (NASCAR's) job to push the limit," leading Raybestos Rookie of the Year candidate Ryan Newman said. "But I think they did a good job of doing it."

"It's always hard when you're dealing with the weather," Winston Cup director John Darby said. "When it comes to track conditions, we're always very concerned about them and we always work real closely with our spotters around the racetrack, our officials in the pace cars, the drivers and our pit road inspectors that are communicating with the crew chiefs that are in touch with the drivers."

Reports of raindrops first went on the officials' radio network at lap 15. A caution flew two laps later and nine laps after that, a red flag was displayed, stopping action for 2:26.26.

"We are always exchanging information back and forth and a good example of that came when we were getting ready to go back to green flag racing after the red flag," Darby said. "We gave the drivers the signal, 'Four laps to go until green,' and if they said it was still wet we went two or three more laps until we were ready."

NAPA 500 Rain doesn't keep Kurt Busch from Victory Lane. Play video Busch does some more celebrating at Atlanta. Play video Joe Nemechek scores his best finish of 2002. Play video  •  Results  •  Standings  •  Video Highlights  •  EA SPORTS Photo Gallery

If drops and spits and mists count as precipitation, it virtually never stopped raining from the time the green flag flew until the event was checkered, under the lights, some six hours later.

Two cautions for rain and the red flag slowed the outcome. Timing was everything Sunday as Winston Cup point leader Tony Stewart and fifth-place Dale Earnhardt Jr. were both noticeably sideways on the closing green flag lap, 242.

"I thought NASCAR did a great job of whenever anybody spoke up or whenever it looked like it (rain) was gonna get too hard, they immediately threw the caution," third-place finisher Dale Jarrett said. "They are really to be commended. We bad mouth 'em enough, we ought to commend whenever they do a good job, I think.

"A couple of times we were getting ready to go back to green and I know I said some things and I think a few other guys said something and they held off until we were all satisfied that the track was ready and we weren't gonna take off and drive down into the first corner or Turn 3 and it was gonna be pouring down rain."

"I think they did a good job, too," runner-up Joe Nemechek said. "It started raining when they were fixing to restart after the red flag. Everybody complained a little bit and they left us under caution until it was right.

"You can tell, pretty much, what it's gonna do but it always makes your mind think twice when there's rain drops coming down."

	Mother Nature had teams scurrying for cover. Credit: Autostock

"We raced the racetrack today and all weekend and NASCAR was up there (in the control tower) racing the weather, no matter what," Newman said after finishing 10th -- his 21st top-10 in 33 races. "I guess the one thing they had working for them was it never really poured -- every once in a while you'd get that light drizzle.

"It didn't kill us, it just got the track wet. Like Joe was saying, it's tough when you're running 200 miles an hour down into the corner, you're the first guy that's gonna get there, and you don't know if it's wet or not, but they did a good job."

"A day like today wears you out with mental frustration," Darby said. "Something that is obviously our objective to the fans and the competitors is to make every effort we possibly can to run the entire race -- but we will never do anything to endanger our competitors or attempt to make them do anything we wouldn't do ourselves."