Rain-soaked race letdown for fans
Bianchi: Decision to start Coke Zero 400 leads to no-name’s win.
DAYTONA BEACH — Everybody, it seems, has the Weather.com app on their cell phone except for NASCAR and NBC officials.
How else do you explain starting an already rain-postponed Coke Zero Sugar 400 at a time on Sunday when everybody knew that even more bad weather was on the way?
The predictable and inevitable result of this decision came on Sunday afternoon when, after a two-hour lightning-and-rain delay, a no-name 500-to-1 longshot named Justin Haley was declared the winner of the rain-shortened race. Haley somehow found himself in the lead after a 17-car accident decimated the field and a sudden lightning strike forced NASCAR to stop the race with 33 laps remaining.
“Look, it’s not lost on me that luck was on our side today,” said T.J. Puchyr, the salty owner of Haley’s upstart Spire Motorsports team. “But I’m not going to feel bad about it at all. I’m going to love it, and we’re just going to continue to be the Little Engine That Could.”
Admitted Haley: “Yes, I was praying for rain.”
The 20-year-old driver in just his third start at NASCAR’s highest level was the official winner, but the unofficial winner was Mother Nature, who rained out the race on Saturday night and then ended the race prematurely on Sunday.
And, make no mistake about it, the biggest losers were the tens of thousands of NASCAR fans who made the pilgrimage here for Daytona’s final Fourth of July weekend race and instead were treated to a lost weekend of pouring rain compounded by poor decisions.
Obviously, NASCAR officials could do nothing about the rainout on Saturday night when the race was scheduled to be nationally televised by NBC. Even though summertime night racing in Daytona is often a meteorological nightmare, we all have come to accept that every major sports league sold its soul to the almighty TV dollar years ago.
But there comes a time when you have to put the paying customers — those who spend hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars on tickets, hotels and $10 beers — ahead of those fans who are watching on TV. Sunday was one of those times. NASCAR should have made sure that those raindrenched fans who left disappointed on Saturday night didn’t leave disappointed again on Sunday afternoon.
Instead of starting the race at 1 p.m. on Sunday, when the 24-hour forecast on Saturday showed thunderstorms would begin to form, NASCAR could have easily started this race at 10 or 11 a.m. to beat the rain. It would have been the perfect ending to this race being run on the holiday weekend in Daytona before it moves to late August next season. The original Fourth of July race at Daytona started at 10 a.m. How cool would it have been if NASCAR had started its final Daytona Fourth of July weekend race at 10 a.m. as well?
If that had happened, the race would have been completed by the time the rains came, fans would have gone home happy and NASCAR would have likely had a winner with some name recognition.
Former champion Kurt Busch actually led the race when a caution flag came out with 33 laps to go. He quickly relinquished the lead for a quick pit stop, thinking the race was one lap away from resuming. A few minutes later, the initial lightning strike haltedthe race for good with Haley in the lead.
When asked what he could have done differently, Busch responded, “We could have started at 11 a.m. and got a full race in.”
It makes you wonder if NASCAR officials really have anything to do with this decision or did they defer to NBC. The company line is that NASCAR, NBC and Daytona International Speedway officials all conferred and came to the mutual decision of when to start the race, but it sure seems like NBC pulled rank.
If you want to blame anybody, maybe we should blame the U.S. women’s national team’s monumental World Cup victory over the Netherlands on Sunday. The World Cup final started at 11 a.m. and the common belief is that NBC did not want its NASCAR coverage going to head-to-head with Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Co.
If ever there was an indication that the times are a-changing, this is it. Who would have ever thought that NASCAR — the ultimate macho-man sports — would defer to women’s soccer? When I asked seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson on Sunday why the race started at 1 p.m. instead of 10 or 11 a.m., he quickly nodded his head.
“Your questions are the same as mine,” he replied. “I wondered the same thing when I saw the [start] time announced yesterday. Clearly, our TV partners have a much larger role of when these races go green than any of us here at the track. As far as I know, NASCAR doesn’t make the final decision; TV does.”
In situations like this, it always makes me wish more sports leagues and executives were like Clifford Roberts, the inexorable, iron-fisted former chairman of Augusta National. Years and years ago, when CBS officials tried to strong-arm the Masters into changing its tee times for better TV ratings, Roberts sneered, “Gentlemen, we’ll inform you when our tee times are, and you’re more than welcome to have your cameras there.”
If NASCAR had taken this stance on Sunday, it would have at least flashed a little glimmer of sunshine on its sad and soggy fans.