NASCAR's Worst Weather Moments 

As Mike Joy once joked way back in 2003, if you're having a drought, just invite NASCAR to your town. It'll rain all weekend.

One of my favorite NASCAR vs Weather memories was when the Tropicana inflatable orange disrupted qualifying in 2004.

The "IT'S CALLED WATER YOU IDIOT" TwistedToe clip got me, that was amazing.

I was at that Bristol 2006 race and took part in the snowball fight between fans and crew members on pit road. I watched a 6'6" dude in a Gordon jacket nail an official right in the neck with a snowball, taking him down.

Reminds me of Chicago's street race this year (2023). The Midwest was in a drought. NASCAR rolls into town, and the track almost floods. The preliminary race gets canceled before halfway, concerts canceled, and tires on pit road were floating away. It was absolutely mental!

To be fair, never mind weather delaying a race by a week - try over TWO AND A HALF MONTHS. The 2016 Indycar Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway originally ran on June 12th, before being rain delayed at lap 71, and given a) the fact the race was nowhere near half distance, but b) more rain was scheduled for the rest of the weekend and the Monday after and c) many drivers were needed elsewhere that next week including many going to Le Mans, Indycar elected to resume the race on August 27th - presumably the next free weekend they had on the calendar to make it work. They ran a couple of practice sessions that afternoon, any drivers who had dropped out of the race pre-lap 71 weren't allowed to resume, and the race rolled off *again* in the running order they were in back in June. I'm sure I remember reading that James Hinchcliffe set a new record for amount of time spent in the lead of a race because of all this, given he was leading at the postponement and effectively led the race for over ten weeks xD

Seeing the snowcapped mountains at Auto Club during the race went so hard.

A note on the Vortex Theory. A moment that always stick with me was the 2019 Spring Xfinity race at Richmond. It rained at my house, within 10 miles of the speedway for the entire 250 lap race. The broadcast crew kept showing the radar, and the rain cell kept heading straight for the track but kept parting just as it should've been reaching the track. Sure enough. Cole Custer took the checkered flag, and before he'd even made it back around to grab the flag, it started raining over the track. I don't know if there's any meteorological explanation for that other than the Vortex Theory

That TwistedToe clip never gets old

I swear if we get one more rain delay this year, imma go fight mother nature

I was at the 2012 Daytona 500, wearing a TBR Dave Blaney shirt I bought at the flea market that day. Blaney was the leader for over 2 hours, in the stands I kept yelling for them to call it. At one time, my whole section joined in on chanting for NASCAR to call the race & give Blaney the win. "Call the race!" "Call the race!" "Call the race!"

Its always a good day when Slap posts

As someone who does a lot of research into past weather events, I've always wanted to create a video about the impacts weather has on sports and specifically NASCAR. This pretty much covers all the bases there from the perspective of a meteorology student/professional nerd. Great job there. Vortex Theory is something I've never heard before and as a student it is very much far fetched. The evaporation theory is more likely than the speeds of them going around somehow pushes the rain away from the track. It would take a LOT of cyclonic (just a general term for circular motion there) motion to somehow pull something like that off. It would have to be constant. Storms forming when there's seemingly no indication of something happening is actually kind of common during the summer months as well in the plains and Midwest. Weather models of today do a fantastic job with predicting storms with large scale systems like a leeward cyclone (Strong frontal system) and a deep digging trough in the upper layers of the atmosphere. As someone who has done deep dives into the June 29, 2012 Derecho and currently looking into the August 10, 2020 Derecho, global models are very hit or miss with storm environments that are much more benign in nature. Specifically in instances where there is not an obvious trigger for storms to fire (or to form. In more benign environments they are usually started by storms that somehow survived the overnight hours, got sparked by a shortwave trough, or the atmosphere was so unstable that storms just started bubbling up. Synoptically those events are poorly forecasted, and in the Midwest and central plains, yeah that is to be expected during the summer months. I never heard about the Storm of the Century's impacts on NASCAR though. I did a lot of research into the storm system itself and everything you said about it being historic is absolutely true. It's one of only two superstorms, the other being Hurricane Sandy. To think that I somehow missed the impact on the Atlanta race when not only is it my homestate but also the worst snowstorm in state history, with maybe one or two storms coming close. March snowstorms aren't unheard of, one happened back in 2009 if I remember correctly up near Athens, but the 1993 Superstorm was in another league. The race delay in Florida in 2020 was likely in association with Hurricane Isaias if I had to guess because no other storm came close to Florida that month. Sorry if I'm just leaving a massive wall of text in your comments section but I've always wanted to see or do a video on a topic like this and you sir did a fine good job of covering the topic at hand. You got my approval if it means anything.

The 2010 Aarons 312 was delayed a day by a level 5/5 high risk for a tornado outbreak. There were three EF3s and an EF4 in Northern Alabama. Talladega was also hit by an F2 in late November of 2004. Thankfully nowhere near as damaging as the Atlanta F2. Also flashback to that several day mist mess at Texas in 2020.

I’m really surprised you didn’t mention the rain delay at Bristol in 1973, they delayed the race for 2 weeks, at lap 52 is when the red flag came out due to rain, but because it continued to rain, they had to race at Rockingham the next week, and they did, then they headed back to Bristol to finish it. Cale Yarborough wound up winning it, leading all 500 laps.

As recent as it was, I AM surprised you didn't mention the Chicago street race in this video. There was so much rain, that tires were actually floating down the flooded streets. Apparently the city experienced two weeks of drought, and of course the moment NASCAR comes to town, it downpours and a half. O'Hare Airport even stated that it was the most rainfall in a single day since 1982.

If you want it to rain in your town/city, Just host a NASCAR Event!

RANDOM WEATHER MOMENT: Seeing that amount of snow at Atlanta in 1993 was unreal to me. I don’t think we’ll see that at a nascar track ever again. I should also point out that as far as the jet dryer crash is concerned, Ganassi’s cars had been running like crap for about two years at that point, as both Montoya and McMurray had rear end suspension failures multiple times before the Daytona 500, where both cars blew their rear end track bars that night, with both cars also causing damage to the track and the field. Jimmy Spencer was right to give them his straightjacket award. “You all must be crazy if you think whatever you’re doing to the rear ends of these cars is doing anybody any good!” Thanks for posting, Slap! Good to see you’re still out there!

I'm really glad you mentioned Bristol in 2006. My parents were at that race and I distinctly remember them mentioning that the snow got so bad that a crew was able to build a snowman

6:21 Jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams, but it does burn Dave Blaney's hopes and dreams.

Speaking of cold weather, the first F1 race held at the track that later became known as the Giles Villeneuve Circuit, in Montreal, Canada, saw the coldest temperature ever recorded for a race day in F1 history. Many F1 fans wonder why the Canadian Grand Prix takes place in June, what's in theory the European part of the F1 season. Part of the reason can stem from this race. October in Quebec is a very cold time of year, and that day in 1978, the temperature was only 5°C (41°F). To give an idea of how cold it was that day, the race winner, appropriately enough, Giles Villeneuve, wore a very thick coat and his team mate, Carlos Reutemann, wore a beanie hat to keep his ears and head warm on that cold day

Slap, thanks for the content. You got me interested enough in racing that I just bought my first tickets to a race, Ironman 55 to see the Outlaw Sprint Cars. Ironically, I would have seen my first race yesterday, but it was cancelled due to extreme heat.

13:22 I wasn’t expecting Twisted Toe reactions on S1ap’s videos! Awesome!!! 👍

That Martinsville spring race last year might have been the coldest experience of my life. It went from 65 and clear to snowing in like 30 minutes

How have none of the Networks picked S1aP up for their broadcasts? Seriously, he's been making the best NASCAR related content out there for years.

My favorite piece of motorsport related weather shenanigans was the 2016 Nürburgring 24h in which a sudden hailstorm caused parts of the track to freeze over

As an Oklahoman, I can absolutely assure you that the nicest spring days are always when the shit hits the fan. I will always remember May 20, 2013. It was a beautiful spring day, and unbeknownst to many, had the perfect conditions for a large tornado. I was at school when the sirens first went off, but was pickled up and rushed home at great (and quite frankly dangerous) speed. I will never forget hearing the weathermen, known for almost never loosing their composure, trying to explain how bad the situation was, and not before simply saying, in effect, “If you can’t get underground, leave. You will not survive in your home.” I knew several people who lost everything that day, and I thank god that nothing like this has happened during a sports event since. I don’t wish that feeling on anyone, especially when you are away from home and

Just when you thought S1apSh0es videos couldn't get any more random, he makes one on *the weather.* And knowing S1ap, this'll be a banger as usual.

For those that want to know more about the “storm of the century” watch Weatherbox’s video on it. It’s still insane to me that the weather system produced a thundersnow in Alabama and the pressure reading over Georgia was on par with a Cat 2 hurricane.

I got to endure freezing cold at Auto Club this year. I still can't believe it snowed over there the day before

Ill never forget Michigan 2012 Speeds reaching record pace of 214+ mph Then a popup storm hits, delays the race for a couple hours Then when they get the race back going the hit day and the wet ground mix to cause some of the worst humidity imaginable My family and i used our spare souvenir shirts that had gotten soaked in the rain storm as neck towels to cool off And all that to see Dale Jr break his 4 year winless streak, it was memorable for sure

My senior year of high school the August race at Michigan was delay by weather till that Tuesday from Sunday. I will always remember that there was a NASCAR race on my first day of my senior year lol. That was the '07 race where the Chevy teams race the '57 Chevy body as a tribute to that car.

Oh I remember the Blizzard of 1993 very well. Here in Pennsylvania, in my area, the only forecasted 1"-3" of snow over night so no one was really worried about it. What happened was we got hit with close to 4' of snow overnight and my car at that time (1985 Cutlass Supreme Broham) was buried in a 7.5" snow drift. The roads were closed here for close to 2 days. Learning that the snow reached so far south that it canceled that for 6 days kind of killed that idea for entertainment. But on the bright side of things race wise anyway, NHRA was racing in either Texas or Arizona at the time, so I did have that.

One interesting postscript on the 1993 Atlanta spring race that I only recently learned about. Originally, that race - as the previous spring races in Atlanta were - was originally scheduled to air on ABC; but by the time the race was rescheduled, ABC had scheduling conflicts with figure skating, thus allowing for the race to end up on TNN.

I have never heard that 1992 Darlington story, and I am so sad I haven't. That is simultaneously one of the most tragic, and funniest, stories I have ever heard. I could only imagine the look on Larry Mac's face when the crew guy said "it was green all around us." 🤣🤣

Being from Louisiana is like being in a poorly directed but high budget disaster movie.

I remember the 2016 Pocono race. They waited a few hours for that fog to clear and it never did. Then it got too dark to continue the race. They were also in the middle of green flag pit stops and Chris Buescher had not pit yet. Most unique and bizarre thing I have ever seen.

I was at the 1998 season finale in Atlanta. The most stunning fact from that day: the track ran out of beer. I’ll repeat that. Atlanta Motor Speedway RAN OUT of beer. Everyone was sitting around for so long and had nothing better to do I guess.

I'll never forget that all-star race, I won a hat from a radio station because Gordon was my "assigned' driver from calling in. I said "I hate him, but I like his chances."

Awesome use of George Carlin's football bit

I was there at the dust storm Las Vegas race and that was an experience. It was windy and cold which was tolerable to watch the race in but the second the dust storm hit your eyes just felt dry. It was a rough day but a heck of an experience.

Cool to hear about the 98 Daytona race. My grandfather fought forest fires for 50 years; and one of them was the fire that shut down the race. As one of the lead safety coordinators for the Northern Rockies Incident Management Team he split his time between the track and out fighting the fire. I have an original poster from the track for the race; on the back are his and many other firefighters’ signatures and a small paragraph about “the race that never was”

That weather delay during the Xfinity race at Bristol for snow is etched into my brain.

Excellent video S1apSh0es. The 93 Atlanta snow delayed race was very memorable and won by Morgan Shepherd and the Wood Brothers.

That crew member reading the radar incorrectly kept Davey and RYR from winning the Winston Million. Great video. Nice research to find all of these weather events.

Remarkable timing, today's WSBK races in Most were quite entertaining due to a on-and-off rain. Motorcykles (apart from Endurance ones, obviously) don't normally pit, and the first supersport class race was one by Taz Mackenzie, who had a rubbish season so far, just because he stayed on the slicks when a rain started, while the rest of the field changed tires, sometimes twice, because the rain ended 4 laps later. I, and probably everyone else, though that he took a gamble and it payed off, but after the race the lad said: "I had a terrible season uptill now, so I though- I'm just gonna ride 'till I crash again".

The 2022 coke zero 400 was probably the weirdest weather event i have seen live when i saw rain on the lenses i knew what was coming but didnt expect a whole fleet of cars just spin then turn hard right into each other and seeing dillon lightning mcqueen his way through the carnage made it even better (Note dont make daytona a regular season finale)

13:37 I was at that race. We dipped out when they threw the caution and we'd been around NASCAR long enough to know when a red flag was coming. We made it to the parking lot just as the rain starting. For those of you not familiar with Pocono, the parking lot is all field. In about 5 minutes, it was a lake. Thankfully we had my lifted truck and were well above the water line and were working our way out when the first bolt of lightning struck turn 3. Then a second struck the field outside of turn 3. Sparks shot up, the truck shook like it just got passed by a rocket, people were running. The wind was so fierce, people were letting go of umbrellas, leaving shoes behind. It was a disaster. When we got back to the hotel room we turned on the TV just in time to hear the press conference about the victims of the second bolt of lightening. We were 100 yards from that fatal strike, directly in front of us. I'll never forget it.

Been to MIS 11 times (9 Infield, 2 off track hotel / air bib). It has rained 8 times for us creating 2 shortened races, and now two Monday races that I could not stay for the Monday so we left on the Sunday. At least Jimmie Johnson won a race in perfect hot weather in a June. That was awesome…

I was driving back from gulf shores Alabama that weekend. Us Minnesota folk were watching the weather. Left early we knew what was coming. Stayed just ahead of the storm all the way back. Listening to the radio talking about firetruck flipping over and freeways shutting down.

Great video 😀👍👍 In part 2, could you talk about the Texas race being “misted” out until Wednesday or Thursday in 2020 please?

I was at the 06 bristol race with the snow. The snowball fights were awesome. I think a couple crews built snowmen on pit road. It was great

I was at the 2019 Chicagoland Speedway race for a Highschool graduation gift from my parents when we had that nasty storm that hit. It was a fun race before the rain and after they were able to dry the track. Man I miss Chicagoland Speedway.

As a European racing fan, the fact that rain alone is such a problem for an Oval track that there where literally people who came up with the solution of putting giant leaf blowers onto cars to dry the track actually is fascinating to me

0:28 I love the little hints you put in the videos sometimes. This one kinda referring to EmpLemon when sometimes on his video makes his character sit in a living room with a fireplace.

Hey S1apSh0es, just wanted to let you know that you got a fan all the way in South Africa 🇿🇦... it's your videos that made me fall in love with NASCAR. Keep making great content, from your South African fan.

Slap I really like your NASCAR content. The storytelling is one of a kind and the your narration style along with the clips you splice in just blend so well. Great videos.

You left out a race I was actually at. The 2010 Daytona 500 was halted TWICE due to a Pothole that had developed because of below freezing temps, high humidity, and moisture on the track and of course a Blizzard that had enveloped the East Coast. It was absolutely freezing in the grand stands with the wind blowing in off of the ocean.

Slap I love your videos and they made me fall back in love with nascar

Great vid, only thing missing was the mist/fog in Texas that one year that ended up delaying the race for like 3 days lol

If i'm not mistaken, you're playing the mario sixty four lava land music while talking about hot summer races. You MR. SLAP are a genius and an amazing producer. Congratulations sir

I was there for the 2006 Xfinity race at Bristol. My dad worked for a pharmaceutical company that owned a suite, and he won a drawing to take me with him. I remember watching folks throw snowballs at each other, and one of the best buffets I ever had in the suite. 10/10 memory, and thanks Slapshoes for reminding me of it.

Surprised you didn’t mention Mother Nature protesting a few weeks back when NASCAR invaded the streets of downtown Chicago.

Fun fact: as mentioned in the video, the 1998 Pepsi 400 at Daytona was moved from July 4, 1998 to October 17, 1998 due to wildfires. And guess what happened on the rescheduled date? The finish of the race was delayed by rain.

And yet the Baja 1000 has only been delayed once for 24 hours due to rain in 2019, as certain roads in mountain passes being washed away. Rain hits the Baja every 3 or 4 years, but 2019 was particularly bad. Though i don't want to tempt fate cause this weekend there is a rain warning for this years 1000. Excellent choice of music for this video. Vaporwave for weather, earthbound for an oddball theory, and mario 64 for desert races. Brilliant. And great narration as always (Though i wouldn't expect any less from you)

You should do a feature on the worlds oldest paved racetrack, The Milwaukee Mile. It was also the home to the 1937 NFL Championship with the 50 yard line being in line with the start/finish line.

Vortex Theory finally gets mentioned in a big NASCAR video, let's go!

I was at that Martinsville race in 2022. I remember it snowed, then hailed, and then rained all within like 45 minutes

Shifting sand land while talking about the hot races. Mint.

My first NASCAR race was the 2007 August Race at Michigan...run on Tuesday. Crossed the entire state on Sunday and Monday just to eat a couple of hot dogs and chill under the grandstands until they decided to postpone. Then the race itself had at least one caution for the residual fog to clear for the spotters. But with how few people stuck around for Tuesday, we ended up getting much better seats, moving from Turn 4 to the peak of the frontstretch grandstands. Kurt Busch won in the blue deuce.

Babe wake up, New S1ap video just dropped

I'll never forget standing on the track at Martinsville that year and all of a sudden it started snowing. So surreal

Every time I see a new slapshoes vid on my notifications I click on it instantaneously

Music choices for this vid go absolute insane

Thanks, S1apS0es. I always appreciate your through analysis of topics. Your nascar content is always a pleasure to watch. Keep it up.

Yep, if you're in a drought, just get nascar to the area. Look what nascar did for us here in Illinois. I live 50 miles south of the city and had tickets for the race. The racing did not disappoint when it was going. I never thought I would be sitting on Michigan Avenue watching nascar.

March 93 snowstorm 😂😂😂 I was in college in Greensboro, NC...were "sledding" on cafeteria trays...so much fun.

The spring Richmond race in 1989 was snowed out on it's scheduled date a week after the Daytona 500...The next break in the schedule was Easter Sunday, and that's when the race ran

Was just watching your older videos so it's great to see this pop up. Another excellent piece of work slapshoes.

My dad was watching that baseball game when the earthquake happened in San Francisco when I showed him that clip from 1989 he still remembers how calm he was during it because he only recently moved to San Francisco and the big one was his first earthquake

It was only appropriate that NASCAR's first ever street circuit race here in my sweet home Chicago got delayed for a massive rainstorm and got shortened due to darkness. I attended that weekend, only to think they won't start it and thought I'd be able to rain check it. When I got home, I turned on my TV and the green flag flew!

Blizzard of 93'. I was 3 years old in Bama at the time that happened. The only thing that came close to that was the "Snowpocalypse in 2014". I had to leave my car at work and walk about 8 miles in the snow to a buddy's apartment to stay the night. The state was literally shut down mainly due to how quickly most of the roads iced up.

My dude just earned a sub simply by putting Saint Pepsi in the outro. Truly magnificent, sir.

One where the biggest surprise was that they managed to get the race in was the second Brickyard 400 in 1995. I went to that one. It rained most of Thursday, but they did get some practice in so we got to see some cars on the track. Friday qualifying was wiped out by rain. Saturday, race day, it started the same and looked like we’d have to come back Sunday, but it finally stopped. The race got started around 4 PM and we thought no way they could get the whole race in before It got dark, but by some miracle they ran the whole thing with just one caution and they finished the 400 miles with Earnhardt winning. There was still light at the checkered flag, but by the time we got to our car, it would have been too dark to race. So with just the normal number of cautions you’d expect at An Indianapolis race, they would have had to shorten it.

The Sharknado scene was such a nice touch ❤😂

Combined two of my passions in life, racing and weather. Nice video slap

a race at Riverside was delayed for 2 weeks due to the amount of rain back in the 1960's, and ironically the last IndyCar race in New Hampshire was restarted in the rain.

I remember the 93 blizzard... that year mid-missouri got a double whammy... first we had record flooding that spring & summer...then we got the blizzard that winter....fast forward to 95 and we got nailed again with record flooding and another huge snow storm... Jefferson city was a huge mess and several small towns were wiped off the map...

"Just remember, you might be witnessing history" oh I DID witness history at the Chicago Street Race weekend! Great video, S1ap, but damn if I'm not disappointed you didn't mention that. A historic drought for months ended by a torrential downpour the DAY of a very historic event. The ENTIRE CITY was literally flooded. I'm keeping my destroyed gym shoes from that day as a testament to what we witnessed haha.

Another Alan Kulwicki memory was a picture of Alan in the garage dealing with the snow at Atlanta Motor Speedway in 1993 bent over the engine of his race car in his driver's suit with his helmet on because it was so cold and they didn't have any cold weather clothes. I remember the teams were so worried about draining the water out of their engines and cooling systems so the wouldn't freeze and crack the engine blocks. I think the photo was in the Nascar Scene or Midwest Racing news. Both are no longer published.

Love your videos, bro. They have a lot more character than some of your contemporaries videos. Thanks for giving me something to watch before the race.

Fun fact: That 2021 New Hampshire race that was plagued by rain happened roughly 10 years after IndyCar had its own rain fiasco at the same track in 2011. I half expected Kyle Busch to flip the bird just like Will Power did.

I’m surprised he didn’t mention 2020 fall Texas , where rain stopped the race half way before stage one , took out harvick , and they had to wait till Wednesday or Thursday to restart it

I was there in June in St Louis this year when our race was delayed for half an hour because of lightning in the area but it was SUNNY over the track! It was really annoying but we got a good race thankfully.

Who would've thought that the weather could play such a huge roll in NASCAR? I sure didn't. Great video

Yooooo that's awesome you used Anderson Speedway to show the vortex theory!!! That race was the Little 500. Alot of people don't understand truly how many nascar drivers have raced at Anderson Speedway.. Just wanna say thank you for sharing a view of the track!!

I love the TwistedToe bit you slid in there Slap.

Last time I was this early Denny Hamlin didn't run people over then blame the other driver

Fantastic writing, seriously great, and the voice and delivery was really nice too.

Can't believe S1ap didn't mention the 2000 Southern 500 or the 2007 Michigan race that had to wait till Tuesday. But hey, it's hard to remember everything