Weather-Based Schedules for the 2015 NASCAR Sprint Cup Season

Coming up with a NASCAR schedule is tough work.  And I know this because I tried to objectively create one based on one single factor alone- weather.  What I found is that there isn’t much room for big changes to the schedule to minimize the issue of weather impacts on attendance (cold/hot and/or wet race weekends) and racing in general (wet weather), at least given the list of tracks we currently have to choose from.  But given the opportunity to make changes in 2015 with the new TV package and the issues we’ve had with Mother Nature this year, I felt like it was worth looking at what would be the best schedule based solely on average weather conditions at each track.

Of course, it’s not as simple as just basing the schedule on weather.  Many other factors, many of which most fans probably aren’t even aware of, come into play and can cause a logistical nightmare, where coming up with one solution creates 10 new problems.  But humor me- Here I have done my best to come up with a schedule based solely on the best weather conditions each week, with little attention given to logistics, and another schedule based on my experience in meteorology and the study I’ve done on historical weather data at each track combined with being a hard core fan of the sport for 30 years.

A little more about my experience in meteorology, just to hopefully give a little credibility to this study.  I hold a Bachelor’s Degree in Meteorology from Florida State University, which I received in 2003.  I worked as a local TV meteorologist for 5 years, but since 2008 I have been working as a meteorologist for natural gas and power trading operations in Houston, Texas, and now work for one of the largest energy companies in the world where in addition to forecasting for cities all over North America for the trade floor, I also predict weather impacts to our offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico, ensuring the safety of all our employees and contractors during severe weather events.

Again, I mention this to separate me from just a fan with a crazy idea… hopefully.  

Being a long-time attendee at Atlanta Motor Speedway, I have seen how weather can affect attendance, and being a meteorologist I know why some tracks shouldn’t have (or shouldn’t have had in the past) races on certain dates.  What I’ve done is create a very basic index based on temperatures and average precipitation. 

There are countless ways to come up with an index for weather at racetracks, and you could make them as complicated as you want.  Maybe one day I will, but for now, I wanted to keep it simple just to see if it would make any difference to the schedule.  Take the daily average amount of precipitation and compare it to the average yearly total precipitation at that track, and take the daily average temperature and compare it to room temperature, 72 degrees.  Combine these two factors, and the lowest values indicate the best weather conditions week to week. 

There are some obvious things that come up.  Homestead, Phoenix, Vegas and California are good for racing anytime in the spring or fall.  Northern tracks are only good from June to September… etc.  But there are some interesting things learned through the analysis I did that could lead to a good alternative schedule.  Note that in the schedules I’ve created, I’ve left some historic dates intact because it wouldn’t make any sense to change them.  The Daytona 500 is still race #1 and should always be, and the Coke Zero (Firecracker) 400 there needs to remain on July 4^th weekend.  And the Coke 600 has to be the weekend of Memorial Day because, well it just does. 

Texas Motor Speedway actually has favorable weather for a large chunk of the season.  We could easily race there in mid-March and usually avoid issues with cold weather.  And more importantly in my book, that would reduce the odds of severe weather impacting TMS during a race weekend.  That’s a ticking time bomb in my opinion.  I always thought that instead of getting rid of the March race at Atlanta, they should have swapped dates with Texas and put it in April.  My index clearly shows this would have been better for both tracks…. But I digress.  I’m still bitter about losing one of my Atlanta race weekends.

What I found as I tried to pick tracks for certain dates is that we simply have too many races up north that make it hard to fit all the other tracks together in a way that makes sense, especially the northern tracks that have two dates.  There’s a reason Pocono’s races are so close together in the current schedule- it’s because they have such a short window of comfortable and dry weather there.  The same can be said for Loudon (NHMS), Michigan, and to a somewhat lesser extent Dover. 

Now, I’m not big on taking races away from places, but three of those four tracks which have limited weather windows during the season- Dover, Pocono, and Loudon – have been talked about in the past regarding either attendance issues or the racing action.  Personally, I like Pocono and Dover because they are both very unique and challenging.  I’ve never been a fan of Loudon, but there are plenty of New Englanders who are already screaming at me having read that statement.  But if one or two, or all three of these tracks were to be reduced to just one race a season, it would make this whole process a lot easier.  If I’m Bruton Smith, I get rid of the September race at Loudon and replace it with Las Vegas or Atlanta, or move the August Bristol race to that date and give the series an extra off weekend in the summer.  In fact, here’s an idea- take Loudon out of the Chase and in return ask for Bristol to get the last race of the regular season instead of Richmond, and move Richmond INTO the chase.

And if we are going to remove race dates from a few tracks, we can add a new track or two to the schedule, or just have a few extra off-weekends.  Maybe we could fit in an Iowa or Road America race in the early summer by taking a race away from Dover or Pocono. 

Under this new chase format, I really think the last race of the season would be best at a short track.  Ponder this- Last race of the season, four drivers, whoever finishes best wins the championship.  Put them on a track where not only could they still manage to win the race with a beat up car should they run into some bad luck or get caught up in someone else’s mess, but where going for broke by rubbing fenders or “rattling someone’s cage” is an option.  Look at how exciting the finish at Watkins Glen was due to what was at stake.  To me, this new format can ONLY work if you end the season at a short track.  And it gives a nod to the sport’s history, too.

The problem is, finding a short track in a climate suitable for racing in mid-November is really, really hard.  It’s hard to believe, but the only southern short tracks we race at are Bristol, Richmond and Martinsville, and none of those places have what I would consider favorable average weather conditions for a race weekend in mid-November.  Darlington isn’t really a short track, but is the shortest track with average weather conditions that are close to tolerable on my scale.  Even Vegas, which has been talked about as a good spot for the finale, is marginal at best and not much better than Darlington.  Realistically, the only track currently on the schedule that makes sense for that date weather-wise is Homestead.  So I guess I’m stuck with it.

I have nothing against Homestead-Miami Speedway.  In fact, if it’s going to remain the last race of the season, and we are going to ditch a couple of track’s second race dates, I think there is a strong argument that Homestead should have a race near the beginning of the season too.  I actually love the track, as it reminds me of the old Atlanta before they reconfigured it in the 90s.  It has produced some great racing since they added the banking, which I think at times has been overshadowed by a lack of excitement in the championship battle.  Plus, the weather there is perfect in early Spring (as well as mid-November).  I would say go there right after Daytona, but realistically that would probably hurt attendance at both tracks as we’re already in Florida for most of the month of February.  So, how about putting it in early April after a West Coast Swing… right around the time a lot of people are in Florida for Spring Break? Lots of potential there.

There has been a lot of talk about weekday evening races.  Personally, I don’t think it would work except for TV, and I am kind of tired of doing things for the TV business and not for track attendance.  Who other than locals or fans spending the entire week at a track are going to be able to attend a weeknight race in person?  It works at Daytona (the Duals) because it’s Daytona.  The only other place I think it could work would be at Charlotte for the All-Star Race.  I think we could try that first, see how the ratings and attendance are, and then consider trying it elsewhere if we still want to. 

So my schedule puts Martinsville in place of the All Star weekend and puts the All-Star Race on Thursday night before the Coke 600.  Yes, that does take away one of the “breaks” the teams get by being at home in Charlotte for two straight weeks, but that’s why I picked Martinsville- it’s just a few hours down the road and hugely popular among fans. Plus, you could give the teams an off weekend the following week since we’ve taken a couple races away elsewhere.

These are just ideas, and I am in no way saying it’s better than anyone else’s schedule that they’ve created.  But when you are coming up with something new, it is helpful to look at it from many different perspectives and listen to any and all ideas that have some kind of foundation underneath them, other than just personal opinion which could be biased to suit one’s own purpose.  If I had my way, Atlanta would get a second race date back, but my analysis shows that there are probably better options than that for everyone. 

I am confident that if there are any changes made by NASCAR, driven by track owners’ financial needs or not, they are looking at as many angles as possible and doing the best they can to come up with a schedule that works as well as it can.  What my analysis does not do is pay any respect at all to the cost required to travel from race to race under this schedule, events and activities at racetracks that would conflict with these dates, turnarounds for tracks to prepare (or repair perhaps) the facility from one race date to another, infrastructure, logistics, TV commitments, sponsors… and the list goes on and on.  And honestly, it could be that there is an even better way to index the weather than I’ve come up with, leading to an even better schedule based on the weather.  But maybe, just maybe this study gets to one of the powers to be and causes them to look a little closer at the impact of weather on the schedule.

Rows in red text indicate race dates I believe should never be changed.  Everything else is up for debate!  I have not taken into account which races could/should be run at night, only where they should be each weekend. "wx schedule" is the schedule I came up with taking only weather into account- this uses the current list of tracks on the 2014 Sprint Cup schedule and orders them based on my race-weather index.  "wx+personal opinion" is a schedule I came up with based on both average weather conditions from week to week, and my own opinion.

weekend of	wx schedule	wx+personal opinion
14-Feb-15	Sprint Unlimited	Sprint Unlimited
19-Feb-15	Budweiser Duals	Budweiser Duals
22-Feb-15	Daytona 500	Daytona 500
1-Mar-15	Phoenix	Phoenix
8-Mar-15	Vegas	Las Vegas
15-Mar-15	Auto Club Speedway	Auto Club Speedway
22-Mar-15	Texas Motor Speedway	Texas Motor Speedway
29-Mar-15	Darlington	Homestead-Miami Speedway
5-Apr-15	Talladega	Talladega
12-Apr-15	AMS	Atlanta Motor Speedway
19-Apr-15	off	off
26-Apr-15	Richmond	Richmond
3-May-15	Bristol	Bristol
10-May-15	Sonoma	Sonoma
17-May-15	off	Martinsville
24-May-15	Charlotte Coke 600	Charlotte Coke 600
31-May-15	Dover	off or add Road America
7-Jun-15	New Hampshore Motor Speedway	New Hampshire Motor Speedway
14-Jun-15	Michigan	Michigan
21-Jun-15	Pocono	Iowa
28-Jun-15	Martinsville	Kansas
5-Jul-15	Daytona	Daytona
12-Jul-15	Kansas	Pocono
19-Jul-15	off	off
26-Jul-15	Watkins Glen	Watkins Glen
2-Aug-15	Indy	Indy
9-Aug-15	Chicago	Chicago
16-Aug-15	Kentucky	Kentucky
23-Aug-15	Pocono	Michigan
30-Aug-15	New Hampshore Motor Speedway	Off
6-Sep-15	Michigan	Bristol
13-Sep-15	Kansas	Dover
20-Sep-15	Dover	Kansas
27-Sep-15	Martinsville	Martinsville
4-Oct-15	Bristol	Richmond
11-Oct-15	Richmond	Darlington
18-Oct-15	Charlotte	Charlotte
25-Oct-15	Talladega	Talladega
1-Nov-15	Texas	Texas Motor Speedway
8-Nov-15	Phoenix	Phoenix
15-Nov-15	Homestead	Homestead