In the future, auto racing fans who miss a race due to rain will have a chance to get their money back. Rain forced the postponement of Sunday’s 3M Performance 400 Nextel Cup Series race at Michigan International Speedway. The race was rescheduled for noon today, and tickets for the race will be honored whenever the race is run. But there will be no refunds for fans who may not be able to return on the second — or third — race day due to weather.
Starting next season, race fans will have an option. Ticket insurance will be offered by World Access, which announced a deal Aug. 8 with MIS owner International Speedway Corp. The insurance company will cover refunds for postponements due to weather as well as for fans who are unable to attend a race due to other unforeseen situations, including medical issues, traffic accidents, jury duty and loss of employment.
“Something like this is perfect for a rain date,” said Sammie Lukaskiewicz, director of communications for MIS. “The unfortunate part about motorsports is that we can’t put a dome over it.” Pricing has not been announced for the insurance, but in a deal that the insurance company made with Dover International Speedway in Dover, Del., the insurance plan cost 5% of the price of the ticket with a minimum of $6.25. The rainout Sunday was the first for a NASCAR Nextel Cup race at MIS since 1977.
[MIS]
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Absolutely unacceptable that they wouldn’t refund your ticket or at least let you cash it in for a date next year or something. The fact that some sleazebags are going to get rich off of this is just as disgusting. I don’t see why you should have to pay extra to CYA if they aren’t able to put on the race on the day you were told they would.
Most people have lives! Some people fly in for races and have travel arrangements that cannot easily be changed. It is unreasonable for them to expect everyone to be flexible enough to hang around for a Monday, Tuesday, or God forbid Wednesday race…
Watch Road Racing….they race no matter what!
You choose Nascar, they didn’t choose you.
You have no idea how many times I’ve cursed NASCAR for not running in the slightest of rains! There’s no reason they couldn’t run a soft compound rain tire just like F1 or Grand-Am.
While I realize they still wouldn’t run in a torrential downpour, this little misty drizzle stuff would be a non-issue!
Is this for Michigan only or ALL Nascar venues?
It sounded like all of them but it only says Michigan?
Jeff:
Absolutely unacceptable that they wouldn’t refund your ticket or at least let you cash it in for a date next year or something.
It might be unacceptable to you but the reality is that’s the it’s alwas been on the vast majority of tracks.
You could sue to get your money back but given the outcome of the Indy lawsuit for the 2005 F1 event you’d lose and lose big.
Jeff again:
There’s no reason they couldn’t run a soft compound rain tire just like F1 or Grand-Am.
With very few exceptions those series’ don’t run on tracks at 200 mph with concrtete walls inches away. And even when they do the turns aren’t banked. Forget railing against NASCAR, rain races on banked wall wenclosed tracks will NEVER happen for safety reasons.
Marc: I’ve had concerts get canceled or moved and they don’t have a problem giving me my money back or giving me credit towards a future show. Why would it be any different for NASCAR? I don’t know how other sporting events work… Been to many a Falcons game, and they’re in a dome, so obviously we don’t have rainouts, and the Braves will at least give you a rain check good for any future game if they get rained out and it’s not an official game.
AMS does the same thing that Michigan does…. Race gets rained out or flat out canceled and it’s tough luck for you. Luckily for me, I’ve had some funky weather here in ATL, but never had a race get postponed by rain. If it did happen, I’m less than 40 minutes from the track and I have a slack programming job so I could miss a day of work and head over to the track on a Monday. As far as Indy goes, at least the people that bought tickets could see some form of race on the day it was scheduled to run. They should have known they would be SOL on a lawsuit. That’s just common sense.
Regardless of how fast those cars in other series go, they don’t go as fast in the rain as they do when it’s dry. Just because you could go 200mph in the rain doesn’t mean you should.
You can argue the rain tire issue all you want, but there is one thing you’re missing or purposfully ignoring.
Whether the cars are going 160mph or 200mph on an oval there are zero “out’s. Outs meaning no place to go on a much slipperier surface but into a hard wall.
All road course’s with damn few exceptions (Monaco being one) F1 runs on provide wide runoff areas that are fronted by sand pits to slow cars that go off course.
Again… you will NEVER see NASCAR run rain tires on any oval track. It’s an outside possibility at the Glen or Infineon (Circuit Gilles Villeneuve now in Busch), and in fact Goodyear was asked to build a tire from them, beyond that your dreaming.
As far as the insurance goes, I personally don’t care one way or another.
As far as you claiming Indy was “some form of race on the day it was scheduled to run,” you’re free to believe that. But I don’t agree, a race scheduled to start 20 cars and having 14 of them peel off into the pits just before the green flag ISN’t a race by any definition.
Safety isn’t the necessarily the primary reason they don’t run a rain tire on ovals. It’s the engineering aspects of the tire that don’t allow them. The compounds of the tires and the tread requirements are dictated by the laws of physics. Something else that is dictated by physics is the way the tires wear which prevent a treaded tire from being used on a track like Michigan.
No one claimed tire construction was an issue Axel, in fact i agree with you.
The point your making is the exact reason why the F1 Indy race in 2005 was such a disaster. The Bridgestone runners, 14 of them, were on tires that couldn’t withstand the extra strain induced by the final, AND BANKED, turn in the road course. The 6 Michelin shod cars also had problems but not to the extent the others did.
A fact that apparently escapes Jeff.