Kevin Harvick All Praise for NASCAR’s Wet Weather Handling With a Major Restart Suggestion

NASCAR and Goodyear did really well at Richmond with the way they handled the rain. It wasn’t exactly a downpour, but they didn’t take any chances and rolled out their wet weather package, putting the drivers’ safety first. And well, it paid off big time. When the track began to dry up, NASCAR didn’t skip a beat and switched over to slick tires at lap 30. Recently, NASCAR’s VP chimed in on the whole ordeal, and Kevin Harvick was all thumbs up, praising the team for stepping up to the challenge.

Kevin Harvick gives a thumbs up to NASCAR for cutting what could’ve been a long wait by about an hour and a half

NASCAR’s Senior VP of Competition Elton Sawyer recently gave a shoutout to the boss, NASCAR CEO Jim France, for being the brain behind the wet weather gear for the tracks. The genius move probably saved fans and drivers from waiting for the track to dry up on Sunday night.

Sawyer said that a couple of years ago, he [Jim France] tasked the R&D Center and Goodyear to come up with a tire that NASCAR drivers could run in the damp, and that’s why Richmond was a success. Sawyer further mentioned they’re not stopping here and will keep tweaking how they use those tires, but getting them on the track was a game changer. Kevin Harvick, sharing the sentiment chipped in on his podcast, praising NASCAR and Goodyear’s quick thinking.

He was like, “I think that the cars handled really well with the, with the wet weather tires on. And I think next time we probably could have started that race on time even with the, the light rain that was, that was coming down and, and been just fine because the cars, they look great. They dropped the green flag and they were from the, from the yellow line all the way to the wall and everybody thought that the cars drove well.”

He added, “So, kudos to NASCAR for dropping the green flag, and I think that probably saved us probably an hour, hour and a half. Huge. It is. So, it’s a that’s a big deal when, when you have fans in the stands and people watching on home to get the race started on time.”

But Harvick didn’t just leave it at that. He did mention a couple of things that could’ve been smoother. 

Former SHR driver mentioned a few changes NASCAR could’ve been made

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Kevin Harvick, usually singing NASCAR’s praises for their spot-on calls, thinks a couple of fine-tunings could’ve really amped up the Richmond race. The big tweak on his mind was switching it up to single-file restarts when the drivers swapped from wet to slick tires. When they make that switch, there’s typically just one dry lane. Harvick’s point was, why risk it with double-file caution laps when you can keep everyone in that one good lane and avoid any slips in a not-so-dry second lane?

He seemed pretty convinced that a single file restart, post-tire swap, would’ve put everyone in a sweeter spot, especially since the track didn’t have to be bone-dry for it. Despite the props for NASCAR’s decisions at Richmond, a lot of fans are buzzing that maybe, just maybe, NASCAR could’ve been a bit sharper with the caution calls. Like, remember when Kyle Busch merely grazed the wall and out came the caution flag?

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