NASCAR's Elton Sawyer satisfied with 'huge success' of wet weather tires at Richmond

One good, non-controversial thing that happened last NASCAR Sunday at Richmond was the use of wet weather tires in a points-paying race. It feels like the sport is finally catching up to other motorsports on the issue of racing on a damp track and potentially in the rain one day.

It took far too long for NASCAR and Goodyear to make this a priority. Now, there are certain problems you have to engineer around when racing in wet weather or full-on rain. Ovals and banking provide even more factors than other series that race on road and street courses full-time.

Still, the progress NASCAR made at Richmond was great. The race was barely delayed, we saw good racing (perhaps the best of the night) as there were comers and goers on these softer, wet weather tires.

After the race, Elton Sawyer was happy with the results.

“First of all, credit to Jim France, this was his vision a couple of years ago he tasked the R and D center and Goodyear to come up with a tire that we could run in the damp,” Sawyer told the media, via Matt Weaver of Sportsnaut. “Tonight was a success, we were able to get the race started pretty much on time. The guys did a great job with the tire, Goodyear did a phenomenal job, we called a competition caution at lap 30.

“That was about where we needed to be, looked like we might have been able to go another five or so laps. The main thing is, we were able to get the race started, get going, our fans at home were able to view the race as well as the fans at the track, so goal accomplished.”

Now if we could just get those competitive pit stops back to slicks.

Elton Sawyer pleased NASCAR started Richmond race so early

While there is work to be done with the NASCAR wet weather package, Richmond was promising. The next step is to figure out how to dry off pit road quickly and allow for competitive pit stops.

I’d take that another step – let these teams decide when to come and pit. Other series, IndyCar and F1 for example, have multiple variations of tires for every race. Softer and harder compounds. While NASCAR doesn’t need that, teams should be able to decide when to switch from wet to slick tires when applicable.

The ultimate takeaway, the race started relatively on time.

“I think if you look at, we had a schedule 7:12 green flag and we went green at like 7:31 I believe,” Sawyer continued. “So, 15 minutes, which is huge. We could have been sitting there another hour getting everything dry like we have in the past.”

Getting the start time in before a major delay is great. Fans tune out when delays happen on TV. They want to tune in when the guide tells them and see the product on screen. NASCAR did that at Richmond. Now, they can start to make it even better, if they choose to.

The next time we see these tires, let’s have real pit stops. Let the teams decide when to come in and switch out tires. Put the control back into the hands of drivers and crew chiefs. Then, we might have a real product for these wet weather conditions.