By: Zach Arnold

LOUDON, New Hampshire — The USA Today 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway will be remembered as one of the craziest weather-impacted races in the Next Gen era. Tornado warnings, thunderstorms, lightning strikes, and the pouring of rain did not scare NASCAR away from running a full 301-lap race.

The race was set to begin around 2:35 pm; however, NASCAR decided to push the start time up 25 minutes to 2:06 pm, 24 hours before the race began. This was a fantastic call by the organisation, as the rain ended just in time before it would have been too dark to continue. 

Before the weather arrived, Sunday’s race went on as normal: long green flag runs, green flag pit stops, it had everything that would be expected out of a race at NHMS. Once the weather arrived, there was a completely different scenario. A total of 219 laps around the one-mile track were completed before NASCAR had to red-flag the race because of rain. Throughout this stoppage, NASCAR managed heavy rain, lightning strikes (automatic 30-minute delay), and the stress of sending fans home 82 laps early. 

The total duration of the red flag delay was 2 hours and 14 minutes, NASCAR waited through the conditions and sent drivers to their cars to resume the race around 6:45 pm EST. Teams were required to use wet weather tires because the track was not completely dry and pit stops would be non-competitive.

Chaos began before the race took the green flag with a spin from Kyle Busch under caution. It appeared something in his car broke and sent his No. 8 into the wall. His day ended there. Earlier in the race, Busch had already spun out twice and struggled to pass cars during a long green-flag run. 

Corey Lajoie also spun out before the race resumed; he just lost it on a pace lap. At this point, it was difficult to imagine what would happen when 30+ stock cars dove into turn one under wet conditions after watching multiple cars spin out under caution. 

As the race resumed, Tyler Reddick held the lead until the yellow flag flew due to a spin by Ross Chastain. Reddick lost the lead on the next restart to Bell. Josh Berry managed to gain 13 positions during the short-stint. 

Different racing lines were used, some of which have never been seen before. Drivers entered each turn on the apron of the track as they found more grip there, “It had a little more grip down there than the middle lanes… the third or fourth lane dried up and became a lot more dominant,” Chris Buescher said about the different racing grooves. 

Five more caution flags occurred after the Chastain spin, and many drivers were involved throughout each incident. The largest incident involved Bubba Wallace, Noah Gragson, Austin Dillon, Austin Cindric, and Erik Jones.

Bell held off Berry for the win, and the No. 20 launched to the lead on each restart. This marks his second Cup Series win at NHMS. 

“I love this place. It is absolutely amazing,” Bell said. “This place – I don’t know – it has been special to me since we came here for that late model race back in, I think, 2015. This one was different though. Rain tires, the track was really slippery – it was just so much fun out there in those adverse conditions, the track was changing around so much. That was one a lot of fun, and I’m really happy for our partners – Rheem, Toyota, DEWALT. We have Watts on the car again. I think we we’ve won every time they have been on the car. Just a really cool weekend.”

NASCAR heads to Nashville Superspeedway for the Ally 400. Tune into NBC Sports next Sunday at 3:30 pm for the 300-lap event.