Brian Vickers: NASCAR should adjust rain-delay procedures
After being scored with a second-place finish in Sunday's rain-delayed, rain-shortened Coke Zero 400 at Daytona International Speedway, Brian Vickers publicly questioned whether NASCAR pulled the proverbial plug too quickly.
Running second to Aric Almirola when rain began falling with 112 of 160 laps completed, Vickers obviously hoped the weather would lift and he would have a chance to challenge for the victory.
But with rain forecast for the rest of the evening and night, NASCAR called the race official around midafternoon, leaving Vickers first among those not entirely pleased with the abbreviated outcome.
On Tuesday, Vickers took it a step further, suggesting the sanctioning body should let drivers know how long it is willing to wait out a rain delay before each race weekend.
"I think if anything (NASCAR should), really so that everyone, including the fans, and especially the teams, can make probably better decisions knowing if we're going to wait all day or if we're going to wait till when," Vickers told FOXSports.com.
Vickers doesn't expect NASCAR to allow the exact same amount of time for rain delays at every race, noting that the time allotted would have to be circumstantial.
"Unfortunately, it can be a moving target, and every track is going to be different," the Michael Waltrip Racing driver said. "Obviously, some tracks have lights like Daytona, so you can race well into the night, and some tracks don't have lights. Some tracks have noise curfews, when you can start, when you have to stop a race, or there's penalties.
"But I think (it is) having some guidelines in place to say, 'Listen, at this track on a Sunday, we will race until this time. On a Monday we'll race until this time.' Just kind of knowing that going in (would help), because you may make different decisions."
While Sunday's forecast for Daytona Beach, Fla., called for nearly a 100 percent chance of rain for most of the evening and night, Vickers pointed out that weather experts can and sometimes do get it wrong.
"I mean, the weather obviously is always a variable, it's always changing," he said. "Even when the weather service says it's supposed to rain, (it) doesn't mean it's going to rain. Even when they say it's not going to rain, (it) doesn't mean it won't.
"There's a reason they always say 70 percent or 40 percent or 30 percent chance of rain because, you know, there's no way to know for sure."
Vickers admitted, however, that if he had been in Almirola's position when the race was declared official, he might not have been so disappointed.
"I think, obviously, I'm sure if I was sitting in Victory Lane, I probably would have been fine with the decision to call the race," said Vickers, who was seeking his fourth Sprint Cup Series trophy in his 298th start. "But when you're second with a chance to win, you obviously want to go racing.
"That's that. It is what it is at this point."
While Sunday's race at Daytona is history, Vickers hopes that NASCAR might have a different approach when it comes to the 10 events that make up the season-ending Chase for the Sprint Cup from which the 2014 champion will be crowned.
"Should it be halfway or till the full distance?" he said. "Again, I think that's something that has to have some thought put into. I'm sure they have a reason for it being the halfway mark. It's a long race and that's a reasonable length of time to have a good race. Thirty-six races, we don't want to be at every track on Wednesday every time there's a rainout trying to finish the whole race.
"I think maybe in the Chase, maybe it is a different mark. Maybe the last race, Homestead, if you have to go an extra day or so to get the whole thing in ... I don't know. What I suspect is there's probably a lot more into making that decision than we all realize. I know there's a lot into it that I do realize, and there's probably even more that I don't."
Above all, Vickers would just like to see more consistency in how long NASCAR is willing to stick out a weather delay.
"I do think there's no reason we shouldn't have some standard guidelines as to when to call a race for rain," he said. "Sometimes we seem to wait a long time and sometimes we don't."
