NASCAR race at Texas drags into ‘painful’ third day of waiting out wet weather

Joey Logano said he’s sleeping better than any other NASCAR playoff driver waiting out the three-day rain delay at Texas Motor Speedway, but noises are still haunting him before bed.

“I went to sleep, closed my eyes and I swear I heard Air Titans in my head,” Logano said. “These things just keep on going!”

The track-drying vehicles have spent more time in Fort Worth making laps than the race cars, which were supposed to have completed their third-to-last race of the NASCAR season Sunday. Instead, the Cup cars were parked on the grid after 52 laps before being rolled to their garages, where they’ve remained for more than 60 hours due to a slick track caused by persistent mist.

The wet weather postponed the remainder of the 334-lap race from Sunday to Monday, then Monday to Tuesday, then Tuesday to Wednesday afternoon. The latest restart of the Autotrader EchoPark Automotive 500 is scheduled for 3 p.m. on NBCSN (weather permitting).

(For live updates from the NASCAR race at Texas Motor Speedway on Wednesday, click here.)

NASCAR has put forth its best efforts to combat the water, deploying a vehicular armada of nine highly-pressurized air blowers called Air Titans, a handful of hot-air blowing jet dryers and a couple vacuum trucks that have hummed along for the last three days with intermittent stops for fuel when moisture picks up. But the crew at Texas Motor Speedway hasn’t been able to keep the track dry long enough for racing to resume, leaving drivers, teams, speedway workers, media members, fans — an entire industry — in a cloud of uncertainty.

Drivers have reported extreme boredom. They are passing the time searching for weather updates, playing video games, working out, reviewing race notes, buying car parts, recording videos, checking in with family members, all knowing that they could get a call at a moment’s notice to prepare to compete — some for a spot in the championship event.

“Obviously everybody’s working hard to dry the race track and the weather’s just not cooperating,” No. 88 Chevrolet driver Alex Bowman said. Bowman sits 27 points below the cutoff for the Championship 4 race.

“Bummed for everybody here,” he said. “It’s the same for all of us. We’re all just sitting around, whether it’s NASCAR officials or track officials or drivers. We’re kind of in the same boat together.”

Logano is the only driver who has secured his place in the final event with a win at Kansas last weekend, which is why he said he’s had more restful sleep lately. He said the early Round of 8 win has allowed his No. 22 Ford team to look ahead to Phoenix during the delay, but there is only so much they can do. He said he’s “gone crazy” inside his motorhome and was so bored that he called Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage to ask if he would open the go-kart track for him for something to do.

Gossage said he couldn’t quite provide that, but he offered the driver something else.

“I said, ‘What’s your favorite board game, Joey?’” Gossage said. “‘I’ll play you in that.’”

Gossage said he ended up giving Logano access to a Speedway Club gym so the driver could burn off some steam. Logano added that he is prepared to drive a jet dryer as a helpful activity. Bowman joked he was ready to race the driers if it meant finishing sooner.

“We could race the rental cars,” Bowman said. “There’s all kinds of stuff we could race here. Maybe just count points on that and send us home. It’s definitely boring. It’s painful for everybody.”

Gossage called it a frustrating situation, especially since the weather forecast called for sun and 70- to 80-degree temperatures Sunday. He said he feels particularly bad for the fans who purchased tickets and made plans to not even see one stage of the race completed. Fans are able to redeem their tickets for a future event at equal or lesser value for up to one year at any Speedway Motorsports race track by calling the speedway’s ticketing office.

Logano noted that crew members were probably suffering more than the drivers since drivers are quarantining in their traveling motorhomes. The only option for many crew members is to wait out the rain in their rental cars and schlep back-and-forth between the speedway and their hotels daily.

“I feel very guilty,” Logano said. “Because I wish they could just come into the bus and hang out with me, one, for them to get out of their cars and two, I’m really bored in there and I want someone to talk to, but we can’t with COVID.”

One photographer at the track, Daylon Barr, tweeted about the emotional toll of the uncertain wait, writing that it was making him “really really sad.”

“This is terrible for my mental health,” Barr wrote. “I miss my fiancé and my dogs.”

The waiting might not end Wednesday either. Rain is in the forecast through the afternoon, so a 3 p.m. start could still be touchy. NASCAR said its weekend schedule for Martinsville will be impacted if the race is postponed again. That Cup race is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday, but an Xfinity playoff race is scheduled for Saturday afternoon and a Trucks race is supposed to take place Friday evening at the Virginia track. Although Martinsville is only a two-hour drive from NASCAR’s Charlotte homebase, the travel from Fort Worth back home creates a logistical nightmare for teams, especially smaller ones, and broadcast partners to ensure enough time to prepare equipment for the next stop on the circuit.

“As of now, if we are able to get the race in on Wednesday, NASCAR plans to leave the advertised Martinsville schedule in place,” a memo sent from NASCAR Tuesday said. “Any additional postponements will require an adjustment to the Martinsville schedule, and we will notify you of those changes as they happen.”

NASCAR continues to wait on into a third day, in boredom and frustration and with a unified thought expressed by Logano: “It would be really nice if we could get this race started.”