Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Associated Press
FORT WORTH, Texas
Blame it on the rain. Or is it because of the aging asphalt at Texas Motor Speedway that drivers prefer?
Really, it’s both, and became a soggy issue for the third consecutive race weekend at the track over an eight-month period.
The IndyCar Series race in Texas is now in what essentially is a 2 1/2-month rain delay, with the resumption scheduled Aug. 27.
“I think we’re going through a rough patch,” TMS president Eddie Gossage said. “We’re just being dealt a tough hand by nature.”
After several hours unsuccessfully trying to dry the 1 1/2-mile track, the IndyCar race was postponed late Saturday night without the cars ever getting on to pit road. The race then started late Sunday and didn’t get enough laps completed to make it official before more rain came.
Two months ago, the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup race there was delayed nearly two hours and ended after midnight. During the Chase for the Sprint Cup last November, drivers lost their two scheduled practice sessions the day before the race while officials tried to dry the track following overnight rain, though the Xfinity Series race was run later that day. The Cup race in April 2014 was postponed a day by rain.
When Gossage was asked if there was anything the track could do with its drainage system, he started with, “Man, I’m just going to get myself in trouble,” before a nearly 4-minute answer that included a lecture-like description about the track’s surface that was last completely repaved 15 years ago.
“Racecar drivers like old asphalt, right? That’s what you always hear,” he said. “Well, old asphalt becomes old because it oxidizes, and because over time the fines and the smaller aggregate that makes up asphalt comes out. ... The result is you have a more porous asphalt.
“An inch of rain, well, that upper level gets saturated,” Gossage said. “And (water) holds it in there.”