Numerous reasons rain tires bad idea in Cup Series

Here we go again: another rain delay, another round of discussions about why in the heck the Cup Series doesn't just deal with it and run a race on rain tires.

It's a novel idea, one that has been kicked around with gusto for years.

But it just isn't that simple, folks. Nor would it be very smart for the Cup guys to strap up and go racin' in the rain.

Beating the rain

Goodyear says a rain tire could be modified for Cup, but NASCAR has no plans to race on a wet track.

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Yes, it stinks that Sunday's Heluva Good! at The Glen was postponed until Monday because of severe weather. Yes, it stinks that this was the second week in a row NASCAR had to wait until Monday to run its Cup event -- and given the history of the event and the penchant for late afternoon summer thunderstorms in the Midwest, it could very well become three weeks in a row this weekend in the Irish Hills of Michigan.

But as romantic as racing on rain tires at a road course sounds, it just doesn't make sense.

Remember when NASCAR tried to do it in a Nationwide Series race in August of 2008 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, the road-course venue in Montreal? There were those in NASCAR who proclaimed it a success. In fact, there were colleagues in the media who thought it was a success -- including the Rain Man himself, Mark Aumann of the NASCAR.COM staff. (Local farmers need rain? Send Aumann and his rain slicker to cover a nearby race and the skies are sure to open up, but that's another story).

The truth is that if it was a success, it was a mixed one at best. And others thought the racin' in the rain experiment was an absolute disaster.

What happened?

To refresh everyone's memories, the race that day in Montreal still ended up being called 25 laps short of its scheduled 74-lap duration.

That's because as the rain continued to fall and the race proceeded, all the defrost blowers, rear brake lights and windshield wipers in the world -- which had been bolted onto the cars when the rain arrived early in the event -- couldn't prevent the drivers from eventually being blinded. Many ended up with a mixture of oil and water on their windshields, making it impossible for them to see.

The rain tires did their job for much of the event, that was true. And the tires used that day were actually nine years old, built in 1999.

"The rain tire, everybody had questions about it. But it worked," said Patrick Carpentier, who finished second that day in Montreal and will drive Monday at Watkins Glen in the No. 55 Toyota usually piloted by Michael Waltrip. "I don't know if I would have wanted to be out there on dry tires that were nine years old, but the tires held up overall."

Should NASCAR officials ever relent and permit rain tires to be used in the Nationwide Series again or for the first time in the Cup Series since an ill-conceived race in Japan many years ago, Goodyear certainly would use a much fresher tire with an improved design -- one closely related to the Eagle One passenger tire. It tested just such a tire last winter with Cup driver Juan Montoya behind the wheel in the rain in San Angelo, Texas.

But in the end in Montreal, the issue ended up being the inability of drivers to see as much as the ability of the tires to hold their ground.

Final verdict

Shortly before the race was called in Montreal, several drivers began running into one another during a caution period. One was Joey Logano.

That day, Logano explained why it is so difficult to race 3,400-pound stock cars in close quarters in the rain, no matter what they're equipped with.

"I hit a lapped car with no brake lights," said Logano, who was running fourth at the time. "I have no idea who it was. I couldn't see five feet in front of me down the straightaway under caution. Somebody stopped, I locked up all four and boom! I stopped at the wall and that was it. It's just not right."

No, it's not. Stock cars are not meant to run in the rain. It's not safe. And safety is what is most important in racing, trumping all aspects of improving the entertainment value or simply "getting a race in" so the racing world can remain on schedule.

Of the Montreal experiment, Greg Biffle said after the race: "It got a little hairy there when it started raining so hard. The car would hydroplane bad down the frontstretch -- and I mean a 140 or 150 miles per hour hydroplane is not very safe."

In this era, with the Chase looming, there also is too much at stake for the drivers contending for one of the 12 Chase spots.

Running at a road course during a 26-race regular season dominated otherwise by races at various ovals is a difficult enough challenge. Making drivers contend with running on rain tires, when the odds of them getting run into by someone else or vice versa increase exponentially, would be asking far too much and cheapening the overall significance of what contending for a championship should truly mean.

Upon closer examination, it just doesn't make sense on way too many levels. So as difficult as it may be for some fans and even many in the media, everyone should forget about it.

It's not going to happen anytime soon, and hopefully never.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.

Joe Menzer is the author of "The Great American Gamble: How the 1979 Daytona 500 Gave Birth to a NASCAR Nation." Click here to purchase.