NASCAR in the rain

Qualifying for the race was rained out on Friday forcing me to get my auto racing fix another way. I've always liked the road courses in NASCAR. Watkins Glen used a support race from the Rolex series (I think that's what it was) that went on even w/ NASCAR qualifying rained out. This series was new to me, so I found plenty of interesting new racing wrinkles. They had rain tires but they only used these when it was raining really hard. You can go a lot faster on the no-tread tires even in a light rain, so they held out until there was a huge wreck. This thing seemed to go on for 5 minutes. It was in the final turn (#11 (where all the passing takes place in the NASCAR race but not one pass occurred in the Rolex race)) right before the pit entrance, and I don't know what some of the last guys in this wreck were thinking. In their defense I'll say I don't know what the person on the other end of the radio was thinking b/c the cars came flying into this turn when cars were piled up against the wall from spinning out. Crazy and dangerous. The cars were also equipped w/ windshield wipers and working headlights. NASCAR has headlights that are actually stickers that look like headlights, and they threaten to run the road races in the rain every year saying they only need a motor to run the windshield wipers and rain tires. Well, they do that every year that it's not supposed to rain. This year w/ a chance of rain mysteriously there aren't any rain tires. No wonder the other racing series mock NASCAR. Of course, NASCAR could buy them and put them out of business (or worse put them on Spike TV), but these other series aren't w/o their flaws. In this road race there were 3 categories of cars racing simultaneously. They scored them all together on the ticker, but really you are dealing w/ 3 separate scoring categories. It makes passing more interesting for everybody, but if NASCAR did something like that the field fillers might appreciate it but it would probably cause more safety problems (Kirk Shelmerdine would finally get press for something other than his struggles). I don't know, I had a good time watching it and would watch it again but for all the negative stereotypes associated w/ NASCAR, the Rolex race still had the same commercials for Sammy Hagar's Greatest Hits and spray on truck bed liner that you see on NASCAR. These other racing series wish they had NASCAR's huge dedicated fan base and that has a lot to do w/ their whining and complaining.