Denny Hamlin, Austin Dillon approve of wet-weather tires after heat races at North Wilkesboro
Well, the wet-weather tires were back out on the track at North Wilkesboro during the heat races. Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon are on board. NASCAR‘s wet-weather tires are rarely used because they haven’t really had a purpose. They aren’t rain tires, and if the rainfall is too hard, they wouldn’t be much of an improvement.
However, as Denny Hamlin and Austin Dillon noted after the heats, in the damp, they work and work well. There is fall-off, lap difference, and it is a good way to get through some wet weather while you wait for the track to dry.
“It was a handful for sure,” Denny Hamlin said, via Bob Pockrass. “The [wet-weather] tires had way more grip than the slicks. The slicks are just so hard that it didn’t actually fall off as much as what the rain tires did and the rain tires ran faster. We’ve definitely gotten something. I think we saw it at Martinsville and now we’ve seen it here where you can run rain-ish tires on dried tracks and eventually have the type of racing that you’re looking for.
“We were kind of the guinea pigs, but you know, we think our car is strong in the dry. Hopefully, that’s what we’re gonna have tomorrow and we’ll be able to show what we got then.”
It seems that Hamlin shares the feelings of other drivers. Although the second heat race didn’t use the wet-weather tires, it still put on a decent showing in limited action.
Austin Dillon agrees with Denny Hamlin on tires
Going over to the Chevy camp, Austin Dillon was echoing a little bit of what Denny Hamlin had to say. The tires are a good intermediary. It lets you get in laps you wouldn’t otherwise get.
If these tires can help us get more racing on short tracks when there is bad weather, I’m all about it.
“I would be willing to do it in that type of condition,” Dillon said. “The worst part is that when it rains you can’t see anything. So, I mean, like even in that little bit of rain that last run when they were starting to drizzle, you had grip but I couldn’t see great. As good as I could the first time.
“I think that would be the biggest thing is that when it starts raining past that you can’t see, might as well stop. But like a damp day where it’s just overcast, yes I would be willing to do it on a short track.”
Personally, I’d lie to see NASCAR leave the tire swap up to the teams. If a team wants to be the first to take the wet-weather tires, then why not let them? It gives an advantage and strategy to teams that they don’t normally have otherwise.