After inclement weather impacted the top three national series last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR addressed its decisions and policies on the latest “Hauler Talk” podcast.
NASCAR Vice President of Racing Communications Mike Forde explained why lightning strikes don’t always result in 30-minute holds. NASCAR kept a yellow flag for lightning toward the end of the Coca-Cola 600 out for only a few minutes after officials determined the storm was moving away from the region.
Forde said NASCAR race control receives text messages for lightning strikes within 20 miles of the track and typically stops races for a 30-minute hold when there’s a strike within eight miles.
“There is a caveat there, however,” Forde said. “More often than not, the lightning is either coming toward us or kind of hovering in that eight miles. But there are times, and typically it kind of happens in the background even before it gets to eight miles, we’re on the phone with our weather partners. And if our meteorologist partners say, ‘Hey, look, the lightning did hit within eight miles, however, it is moving away from the race track. There is no danger to any of the fans in the stands, the officials on the ground, the crew members, the television partners,’ then we can continue racing.”
Forde said NASCAR threw the yellow during that conversation with the meteorological experts.
“Better safe than sorry,” he said. “After a pretty quick conversation, our partners at the weather company said, ‘No, this is moving northwest, away from the race track. You’re not going to have to worry about this lightning strike.’ We were able to get back to green-flag racing. So, certainly a unique situation, but not a rule change for the Coca-Cola 600. It has happened before, maybe not to this extent where there was a caution, and then we immediately have gone back to green, but it has happened in the background.”
— NASCAR.com —