The long yellows

[Z28]

At one point they commented on the radio that about 28 of 89 laps of the race being under caution. The cleanup of debris needs to be done after a wreck but all of the yellows last almost that long. Sitting there I couldn't help but put the blame on a combination of the double file restarts and Firestone.

From the start one of the drivers' complaints was restarting on the outside with marbles. In response the series began sending sweepers and blowers out on every caution to make that outside lane clearer. That means even a simple spin with no debris causes a long delay for those slow sweepers to make a lap.

They wouldn't have to do that if Firestone wasn't making such soft, and grippy and fast tires that shaved off so many marbles.

The trade off appears to be, higher racing speeds with the racier tires and the closer racing competition by bunching up for double file restarts but longer caution periods while the marbles are swept up by those slow sweepers and blowers because the outside lane needs to be cleared.

After the season I think they should evaluate not how many yellows there are but how much of the racing laps they eat up to clear the marbles. Then decide if the clean up for the double file restarts makes those restarts worth the racing time lost or if Firestone should make more of an effort to have tires that give off less rubber that needs to be swept.

[TimmyZ1]

At one point they commented on the radio that about 28 of 89 laps of the race being under caution. The cleanup of debris needs to be done after a wreck but all of the yellows last almost that long. Sitting there I couldn't help but put the blame on a combination of the double file restarts and Firestone.

From the start one of the drivers' complaints was restarting on the outside with marbles. In response the series began sending sweepers and blowers out on every caution to make that outside lane clearer. That means even a simple spin with no debris causes a long delay for those slow sweepers to make a lap.

They wouldn't have to do that if Firestone wasn't making such soft, and grippy and fast tires that shaved off so many marbles.

The trade off appears to be, higher racing speeds with the racier tires and the closer racing competition by bunching up for double file restarts but longer caution periods while the marbles are swept up by those slow sweepers and blowers because the outside lane needs to be cleared.

After the season I think they should evaluate not how many yellows there are but how much of the racing laps they eat up to clear the marbles. Then decide if the clean up for the double file restarts makes those restarts worth the racing time lost or if Firestone should make more of an effort to have tires that give off less rubber that needs to be swept.

They would have had an excuse for a red flag for the Conwheezy/Beatriz wreck. Looked like a plane crash with all that shrapnel floating around. Which goes back to the orginal comment long yellow. These cars disengrate when wreck and shed a lot of parts. Much more then lets say a cup car. Lot more to clean up. It also seems they always leak a ton of fluids when they wreck but I'm assuming because stuff is stored in the side pods.

[Oben]

Firestone actually brought harder rubber to Iowa this year, which made the cars more difficult to drive, probably leading to more yellows. I think the only real difference in the length of the yellows is double file restarts.

Long yellows are a drag, but my feeling so far is that I was already irritated by sitting through yellows before double file came along, and that now at least I have something to look forward to. The restarts on ovals are a lot better this year than in years past.

I think double file restarts are here to stay, so they probably need to figure out how to clean up the marbles faster. Making the tires harder doesn't seem to make that much of a difference.

[Ydawg]

There was a high groove all night long which is what contributed to the amazing
racing.

[burbanite]

And to give them credit, they were actually attending to several possibly serious injuries during that time.

[jackinbox]

I have to say it was pretty nice watching the F1 yesterday without a single caution. 6 of the 8 F1 races this season have had ZERO. Gotta love it!

[StatMan]

Cautions, or overtakes?

At one point they commented on the radio that about 28 of 89 laps of the race being under caution

It didn't get much better as it went on - about 30% of the race (by laps) was caution, which means the split by time was even worse and possibly greater than 50% yellow.