Rain, seeping water turn Cup race into marathon

FONTANA, Calif. -- A water crisis in California usually means there's too little of it. On Sunday at Auto Club Speedway, the opposite was true.
Just about everything liquid-related that could go wrong, did in the Auto Club 500, but it wasn't from lack of trying. The race started three hours late because of heavy overnight and morning showers, and even then was delayed when Michael Waltrip's car began spewing oil during the parade lap.
Then water -- standing and falling -- played a key role in a pair of red flags before the race reached the 100-lap mark.
AutostockOfficials cut grooves in the racing surface so water could seep during a red flag.
After two accidents in the first 21 laps, both appearing to be the results of water seeping up through cracks in the track surface, NASCAR officials stopped the race and spent 67 minutes working to resolve the issue.
First, Denny Hamlin skittered up the track in Turn 3 and belted the outside wall on Lap 15, heavily damaging the right side of his No. 11 Toyota. Hamlin was adamant that wet spots on the track were the culprit (watch video).
"I think we can get back out there, but I think there are 42 other drivers that would agree that we should not be racing on that racetrack right now," Hamlin said. "I hit a slick spot and my car took off. You can see it on television -- right at the seams, it's seeping a lot of water. I hit a wet spot and I'm not going to be the last one."
Hamlin proved to be a prophet when six laps later, Casey Mears lost control coming out of Turn 2, spun back in front of traffic, was clipped by Dale Earnhardt Jr. and then lifted and turned upside down by Sam Hornish Jr.'s car. Reed Sorenson also suffered damage in the incident (watch video).
Again, it appeared that crossing from one groove to another over the seams in the track was not a good idea.
"We got a little bit loose getting down into [Turn] 1," Mears said. "A couple of times, I hit the water there that's at the seam there seeping through. I hit it quite a bit down in 3 and 4, it's a little bit worse down there.
"And there's a little bit down in 1 and 2 -- and right as I got to the bottom, I got loose. And I don't know if it was right about the time I crossed that seam. I don't know if that was the reason or not but I hadn't been real loose, and that time I was. We about had it saved. It just kind of brushed the wall and unfortunately, it had to come back across the track and all the cars were coming by."
Hornish didn't blame NASCAR for the situation, which had been a problem ever since Friday's day-long deluge that wiped out Sprint Cup qualifying.
"There's a lot of weepers in between the first and second groove," he said. "We could, in a lot of ways, have the jet dryers run until [Monday] and still maybe not even get it [dry] and that's if it doesn't rain anymore.
"I think that NASCAR made the decision that they thought was the best. You had to pick your line going into the corner. You couldn't cross that center section, so maybe not the best conditions for racing, but as the cars ran it was definitely going to get better and better."
Junior was not pleased with the condition of the track from the start, as several cars -- including Matt Kenseth and Kevin Harvick -- were forced to make unscheduled stops to clear debris from their grilles.
"We were just sitting there trying to chill," Earnhardt said. "The track's real dirty and everybody's sliding around. The track ain't ready today. The track's dirty, and this was a bad move."
Harvick seconded that opinion.
"The racetrack wasn't really ready to start with," he said. "There was water running down the track in 3 and 4, and I think a lot of [drivers] were telling [NASCAR officials] that. Now it's worse. It's just really wet."
At that point, NASCAR officials halted the event and sent track crews to cut vertical stripes in the offending areas, hoping to create channels for the water to dissipate.
"We saw some weepers developing, so we asked the track to come out and cut some straight lines in those areas in order to relieve the water that had begun to seep up there," NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said.
With that issue apparently settled for the time being, light precipitation brought out under caution at Lap 41.
But it was another stray shower that pelted the track after 87 laps, forcing the cars back onto pit road, where they were covered. While crews huddled under cover, shivering in the cool, damp, decidedly un-California-like weather, the jet dryers once again went to work.
However, the dewpoint and humidity worked against efforts to make the track suitable to continue the race -- and in the end, or 2 a.m. ET, officials were forced to concede, at least for now. So the Auto Club 500 will resume Monday at 1 p.m. ET, with the Nationwide Series Stater Bros. 300 -- postponed from Saturday night -- to follow.
Jimmie Johnson is leading, followed by Travis Kvapil, Kyle Busch, Greg Biffle and Kasey Kahne. Jeff Gordon, currently sixth, dominated much of the early going, leading five times for 57 laps. Forty-one of the 43 starters were still running, including Sorenson, Earnhardt and Hamlin, all down several laps to the leaders.