Rain cancelled qualifying. Rain postponed today's race. Rain is strongly in the forecast for tomorrow. It's early spring in the Virginia mountains where rain (or worse) is a strong possibility. And so it is in the southern Virginia mountains this last weekend of March.
Fortunately for the drivers, the have next weekend off in observance of Easter and Passover before heading back out west for the spring race in Phoenix, Arizona where rain is seldom an issue.
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The real losers in this dilemma are the fans, many of whom are weekend warriors who cannot stick around and hopefully see action tomorrow but don't rule Tuesday out. Smaller crowds mean less vendor sales and a financial hit to them and the racetrack itself.
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Such is life in outdoors sports where weather can create safety and competitive problems. NASCAR has made some adjustments to its schedule in fairly recent history to deal with some potential weather issues such as moving the first Richmond race from the first weekend in March to early May. Moving Talledega's July race to the fall also helps protect the race fan from the beastly heat of a deep down in Dixie summer. Surely going from Daytona to Fontana to Las Vegas also makes sense.
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Nothing is better for NASCAR than having the stands full of happy comfy race fans. In an environment where even Bristol did not sell out for its first race of 2010, the sport should make every effort to evaluate its schedule and line up races at the best possible time to attract the most fans, and maybe some of the long 500's could be cut back so fans can get back home safely after a Sunday afternoon of racing.
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Perhaps the lesson in today's rain out is that at least there is one thing that can keep Jimmie Johnson from collecting another trophy -- or grandfather clock, RAIN!!!
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