IndyCar: Thursday's monsoon-like rains at Texas reminiscent of 78-day race in 2016

The monsoon-like rains at Texas Motor Speedway that cut the IndyCar practice session short were reminiscent of what happened in 2016 to cause the race to last for 78 days.

The opening practice session for the 2019 IndyCar season’s ninth race, the DXC Technology 600, at Texas Motor Speedway was not even halfway completed when the skies opened up and dumped monsoon-like rains on the track.

Such rains were reminiscent of what ultimately caused the race at the four-turn, 1.44-mile (2.317-kilometer) high-banked Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth, Texas in the 2016 season to be turned into a race that was postponed, delayed and suspended to the point where it became a 78-day race.

It was truly a one-of-a-kind race.

So when the rains came on Thursday evening, there was only one thing to do: pray that this year’s running of the race can actually be completed within 11 weeks.

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This race was scheduled to take place on the evening of Saturday, June 11, 2016. But rain caused it to be postponed to Sunday, June 12, when the forecast still did not look promising. The race was further delayed by about an hour due to high humidity that made it challenging to extract all of the water from the track from the storms on Saturday.

With dark skies looming, the race got underway, but it was obvious that it would not reach the halfway mark (lap 125/248) for it to be deemed official. A nasty wreck involving Josef Newgarden and Conor Daly on lap 43 pretty much solidified this, as the rest of the field ran around for 29 laps under caution before the race was red-flagged and the skies opened up.

But as opposed to rescheduling the race until Monday, June 13 like what would have been done for postponed/suspended races at most tracks, the race was rescheduled for two and a half months later on Saturday, August 27, the 78th day of a process that ordinarily takes around two hours.

The race itself ended up being well worth the wait.

Well, the ending at least.

Schmidt Peterson Motorsports’ James Hinchcliffe restarted the race with the lead on lap 72, and he dominated the race, at times leading by roughly half a lap over second place during stints where the race just seemed to drag on. But after the final restart with eight laps remaining, the racing was some of the best racing that IndyCar has ever seen.

Here is a video of the exciting ending of this race.

NOTE: Begin watching at 1:18:00.

Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing’s Graham Rahal ultimately emerged victorious by just 0.0080 seconds over Hinchcliffe in second place, marking the fifth closest margin of victory in IndyCar history, and he led only the race’s final lap after Hinchcliffe led 188 of the 247 others.

To add to that, Rahal almost cost himself the victory by celebrating too early, pumping his fist in the air and adding drag to the car that ultimately allowed Hinchcliffe to inch ever so closer to him as they approached the finish line.

It would have been his second Texas Motor Speedway collapse in the last five years, as he also hit the wall in turn four with the lead with just over two laps remaining in the race at the track in the 2012 season, handing the late Justin Wilson what ended up being the final victory of his IndyCar career.

I guess with how this race turned out, another 78-day race wouldn’t actually be a bad thing for the fans who are willing and able to wait for the finish.

That said, the forecast looks very promising for tomorrow night’s race, as there is only a 10% chance of precipitation, so while races at Texas Motor Speedway are typically unpredictable, you are pretty safe to predict that this one will be unpredictable within the usual time frame of a few hours on a Saturday night in June.

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This year’s DXC Technology 600 is scheduled, the key word being “scheduled”, to take place tomorrow night, and it is scheduled to begin at 8:40 p.m. ET. The weather forecast looks good, so the 2019 IndyCar season’s ninth race at Texas Motor Speedway should be a traditional race of a few hours as opposed to a race that takes 78 days to crown a winner. Tune in to NBC Sports Network at 8:00 p.m. ET for the live broadcast of the race.

IndyCar: Thursday’s monsoon-like rains at Texas reminiscent of 78-day race in 2016

By Asher Fair | Jun 7, 2019

The monsoon-like rains at Texas Motor Speedway that cut the IndyCar practice session short were reminiscent of what happened in 2016 to cause the race to last for 78 days.