NASCAR New Hampshire takeaways: Wet-weather tire dilemma, Christopher Bell shines

Five thoughts after Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at New Hampshire Motor Speedway …

1. Taking Stock

Here’s the great news on NASCAR’s wet-weather tires: They work as intended. Actually, they work even better than intended.

In numerous examples so far, there hasn’t been one moment to give anyone pause. The tires not only allow the race to start or resume much sooner after rain, but they actually provide more entertaining racing than NASCAR’s typical short-track product because drivers have to search for moisture all over the track.

It’s been highly enjoyable to watch drivers try and figure it out, and there hasn’t been anything close to some sort of disastrous PR moment where fans or competitors would say “Told you! Racing in the rain on ovals is a bad idea!” If anything, it’s been the opposite.

And that leads us to our quibble about the wet-weather tires: Now that it’s been proven they work, it would be nice if NASCAR would let the teams and drivers manage their own races and determine their own fates.

Under the current policy, NASCAR is treating the rain tires like bumper bowling at a children’s birthday party. Officials allow the competition to take place, but they don’t want anyone to have a gutter ball. And while that’s very kind of them, this isn’t little Margaret rolling the ball down the lane as her first-grade friends munch on slices of pizza; this is the PBA, and the pros can handle the consequences of an errant shot.

NASCAR has said it wants to take a conservative approach with the tires because the whole concept is relatively new. But the key word there is “relatively,” because they’re not that new anymore. The Truck Series first raced the wet-weather tires on an oval in April 2023 (Martinsville) and the Cup Series used them at North Wilkesboro for the All-Star Race heat races one month later.

Then, earlier this season, Richmond saw the first use of the wet-weather tires in a Cup Series points race (in this case to start the event).

This weekend, both the Cup and Xfinity Series needed to use the “damp package.” But in each case, NASCAR did not leave it up to the teams as to when they could and could not run the wet-weather tires.

That’s unfortunate, because allowing individual drivers and teams in terms of how they want to manage the conditions is a major part of racing. It’s one of the only things that makes F1 racing compelling at times, as drivers must decide how hard to push it on a still-drying track (or figure out when it’s too wet to use slick tires).

NASCAR has insisted it will never use the tires while it’s actually raining, which is fine. Stock cars no longer have windshield wipers or mud flaps, and spray is a concern. But once the race starts or resumes, it’s the brilliant people who call the race atop the pit boxes, in the teams’ remote war rooms and behind the wheel of the cars themselves who should be allowed to decide what works best for them.

Late Sunday, with the race outcome on the line, NASCAR continued to dictate both when teams could pit for tires and for which kind. At one point, officials told competitors they could not take tires at all — this despite some insisting their treads had already worn down to the point where they couldn’t properly race. So officials then reversed themselves and required everyone to take tires — except not everyone wanted to do so.

If it’s a split decision among the field, NASCAR making the decision is too much of an unnecessary overreach. The race should have been determined by the teams getting to choose the following:

— Whether they want to pit for fresh tires or stay out for track position;

— What they want their strategy to be while using the tires (go hard or conserve rubber);

— What they think the current track conditions require for their car and driver (wet tires or slicks).

Though it’s understandable competitive pit stops on a still-drying track are a concern with crew members near the cars, aren’t there some reasonable solutions? For example: Why not simply mandate a much lower pit road speed if the conditions are deemed too risky? Heck, 15 mph would be better than non-competitive pit stops where no one can lose a position.

The bottom line is while the wet-weather tires have been a great success so far and one of the best NASCAR innovations in years, it’s time for officials to stop the hand-holding, take the training wheels off and let them ride.

2. Fastest Car Tracker

For a solid 90 minutes, it sure looked like Other Cars were going to get another W. Tyler Reddick was leading the race when it was stopped for rain thanks to a strategy gamble, and the approaching storm sure seemed like a race-ender.

But ultimately, it was Christopher Bell who took what seemed like the fastest car in both dry and wet conditions back to the front — although he wasn’t convinced he was the fastest in the dry.

“I definitely didn’t have the dominant car,” he said. “Then whenever the wet came … we might as well have been at somewhere completely different.”

But in the absence of any compelling data or stats saying another car was faster, we’ll assume it was indeed Bell. For example: There were only six lead changes among five different leaders in the race; Bell was the only driver to lead multiple times and he paced nearly half of the total laps (149 of 305).

So that’s a win for the Fastest Cars to tie the season score, and notably, it’s a series-high fourth time Bell has been able to make that claim this year.

Fastest Car Score: Other Cars 10, Fastest Cars 10.

Fastest Cars by Driver: Bell 4, Kyle Larson 3, Denny Hamlin 3, Tyler Reddick 2, William Byron 2, Joey Logano 2, Michael McDowell 1, Martin Truex Jr. 1, Todd Gilliland 1, Ty Gibbs 1.

3. Q&A

Each week in this space, we’ll pose one question and attempt to answer one from the past.

Q: How will our perception change before the Olympic break?

Three of the next four races until the two-week pause for NBC Sports to air the Olympics are on intermediate or large ovals, which is quite a departure from the recent lineup of racetracks.

We haven’t seen the Cup Series run a full race on a bigger track since May 12 at Darlington, because the Coca-Cola 600 was shortened by rain before it even reached the two-thirds mark.

But aside from the Chicago Street Race next month (which will have little correlation to the rest of the season), check out what’s next: Nashville Superspeedway (1.33 miles, but races like an intermediate), Pocono Raceway (2.5 miles) and a return to the real Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (2.5 miles).

That’s a far different look than this recent run of smaller tracks like North Wilkesboro, Gateway, Iowa and New Hampshire.

So although some of the talk has lately revolved around a Ford resurgence, including Team Penske getting back in the game speed-wise, it’s worth remembering no one outside of Hendrick Motorsports or Joe Gibbs Racing won on a non-superspeedway this year until RFK Racing’s Brad Keselowski at the aforementioned Darlington race.

Is that what this next stretch until the Olympics will bring? Or has the season evened out enough to where Penske, RFK, 23XI Racing, Trackhouse Racing or even Stewart-Haas Racing could be a player at a venue like Pocono or Indy?

The guess here is Hendrick and JGR will bring some elite cars over this final push until the break, but with some of the recent swings in the field, you can’t rule out an alternative scenario.

A: Can Chase Elliott make the playoffs?

Yes, we already know Elliott is in the 2024 playoffs thanks to his victory this spring at Texas, but that was last year’s post-New Hampshire question in this column.

At the time, we answered “No” and, as you well recall, that proved to be correct.

But this year has seen a much more consistent Elliott, along with the No. 9 team. He is tied for the points lead with Hendrick teammate Kyle Larson, has yet to place outside the top 20 all season and leads the series in average finish.

With Elliott’s playoff eligibility not in doubt, the better question currently is “How far can he go?” With eight races remaining in the regular season, would you consider Elliott to be a Championship 4 contender? Personally, if I had to pick today, my final four would be Larson, Denny Hamlin, Christopher Bell and Ryan Blaney.

Why Blaney over Elliott? Because Blaney had a top-three car on each of the last three ovals, all of which have some loose translation to the championship semifinal and final (which is how he won the title last year).

Elliott is close, but his laps led are concerning. Even after being awarded with the pole after a qualifying rainout this weekend and using that track position to lead the first 41 laps, Elliott still only ranks 10th in laps led.

That might not be enough speed to cut it come playoff time, even if he gets 15 points for winning the regular-season title. Larson, for example, has led more than four times the number of laps Elliott has.

But if the No. 9 team can find a tick more pace this summer, that could make him much more of a serious championship threat.

This time last year, we were wondering if Chase Elliott would make the playoffs. Now the question is, how far can he go? (Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

4. NASquirks

NASCAR continues to struggle to find the fairest way to qualify on ovals, and the result has been an increasingly complex and confusing format.

Understandably, officials really love the idea of having a multi-round knockout-style qualifying format because it offers drama. But implementing it has proven to be quite challenging.

Formula One and IndyCar qualifying in these formats are done in timed group sessions, but that does not work in NASCAR because stock cars can draft around ovals. When NASCAR experimented with group qualifying, teams quickly figured out the best strategy was to go out last and take advantage of the draft — so drivers waited until the very last moment and all went at once.

Ultimately, this led to the infamous Fontana qualifying session of 2019 in which no one set a qualifying time in the final round because they all waited too long.

After more experiments and once qualifying returned following the pandemic, NASCAR seemed to land on a new format: Two qualifying groups of single-car runs, in which the top five from each would advance to the final round. But this year, that was deemed untenable because one group was often at a disadvantage to the other.

As a result, there was a tweak: One group would line up on the inside and one group would take the outside in the starting lineup, no matter where their actual speeds landed.

Except guess what? Even that has now changed, because half of the top 10 qualifiers were viewed as being treated unfairly based on their group. So, as of this weekend, NASCAR announced another change. We’ll let this X post from Motorsport.com writer Jim Utter “explain,” if you want to call it that:

“The fastest vehicle from Group A and Group B will be assigned starting positions 1st and 2nd based on their fastest single lap speed in the Final round in descending order. The 2nd, 3rd,4th and 5th fastest vehicles in the Final round from Group A will be assigned starting positions 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th. The 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th fastest vehicles in the Final round from Group B will be assigned starting positions 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th.”

Does your brain hurt after reading that? Mine does.

“It’s kind of an unnecessary rule,” William Byron told Fox Sports’ Bob Pockrass at New Hampshire. “We should go out, just one through 40, and see who has the best lap.”

That sounds simple, but … so what? NASCAR qualified without groups for decades and no one thought anything of it. There’s always going to be some degree of track conditions changing during a qualifying session, but that’s just racing.

Knockout qualifying is fun and can still be used on road courses. But for ovals, the best idea is sometimes the most straightforward: Let each car go make two laps and line them up by whoever has the fastest speeds.

5. Five at No. 5

Our mini power rankings after Race No. 20/38 (including exhibitions):

1. Christopher Bell (last week: 4): Over the last five races, Bell leads the series in every major category (wins, top-fives, top-10s, laps led, average finish). In particular, his average finish has been eye-opening: 4.4, with his worst result a ninth-place run at Sonoma.

2. Kyle Larson (last week: 1): Larson won at Sonoma, had the best car at Iowa (before his hopes were thwarted by a three-wide gamble) and didn’t do anything at New Hampshire to make us think his speed is suddenly going to disappear this summer.

3. Ryan Blaney (last week: 5): Should have won at Gateway, won at Iowa, then got taken out at New Hampshire while running in the top five with four laps to go. This team has found speed on the shorter tracks, and now it’s time to see if that carries over to upcoming big-track races like Nashville, Pocono and Indianapolis.

4. Chase Elliott (last week: 2): As mentioned above in the Q&A section, Elliott has been a consistent top-five threat but doesn’t always appear to have race-winning speed. Nashville, where he won two years ago, could be a great place to correct that perception.

5. Denny Hamlin (last week: 4): This team had five straight top-five finishes and is suddenly experiencing a strange blip in what has otherwise been an excellent season. Hamlin blew a motor at Sonoma, had a miserable Iowa race and then sunk from third to 24th after the New Hampshire race restarted in the wet. Still, you’d think the No. 11 team would be fast at all the upcoming ovals, so there isn’t cause for concern yet.

GO DEEPER

Christopher Bell on managing emotions and dealing with disappointment: 12 Questions

(Top photo of Christopher Bell celebrating his win Sunday in New Hampshire: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)