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Las Vegas Weather Update: Severe Thunderstorm Category Winds Threaten NASCAR’s Sin City Showing

Published 03/01/2024, 5:27 AM EST

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USA Today via Reuters

It seems Mother Nature isn’t pleased with NASCAR this year. After the season-opening Clash at The Coliseum and the iconic Daytona 500 suffered at the hands of inclement weather and schedule changes, the upcoming weekend’s racing action at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway seems to be headed in the same direction. Recent reports suggested that while there isn’t a rain forecast, thunderstorm-category winds gushing up to 60 mph might affect the region. 

One thing that fans will take hope from is that there is no prediction of rain which has been painful for everyone involved with the sport of late. However, unmanageably fast winds can also have a detrimental impact on the weekend’s racing action in all three competitions. NASCAR may also end up suspending races for a few hours or even a day or two if things get out of hand.

Rain and winds play spoilsport yet again

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How can something like wind have an impact on racing? Well, it’s pretty obvious. The Las Vegas Motor Speedway is a fairly sized oval track on which cars will be running at over 300 kmph. Any inconsistent gust of wind will not only offset the balance of the car but will break a driver’s concentration and there might not be a lot that they could do about the car crashing out.

And every single car on the track will run this risk, so the chances of numerous big ones are high. These are dangerous driving conditions. Something everyone has to keep in mind is that there is nothing more important than the safety of the drivers. If something untoward were to happen due to sudden high-speed gusts of wind, no one in the world of motorsports would forgive NASCAR.

According to weather forecaster Brian Neudorrf, the Xfinity Series race might be the most affected out of them all. On Friday, the predicted wind speed is 35-40 mph. For Saturday, it is 55-60 mph, and for Sunday, it is 25-30 mph. Neudorrf confirmed in the comments section of his tweet that the speed will be approaching the severe thunderstorm category (equal to or more than 58 mph) on Saturday.

Race fans are not very thrilled with these new developments, as they believe that the weekend’s action will be an absolute bust. A lot of the concerns expressed were for the spotters and those taking part in the Xfinity Series race.

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NASCAR fans express safety concerns for spotters, Xfinity Series drivers

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The spotter’s stand is situated quite high above the racetrack. If winds on Saturday go over 50mph, it will be beyond dangerous for them to stay there. To be quite fair, it would be extremely tough for the cars as well. NASCAR fans may like their sport with a passion, but safety turned out to be everyone’s primary concern on social media.

“They won’t have spotters in the spotters stand if there’s 50-60mph wind gusts and if that’s the case there won’t be any cars on track,” one user wrote.

“Spotters might have to tie themselves down up on the roof with those winds,” commented another.

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Even the Cup Series drivers will have problems if they are hit with gusts up to 25 mph. On Saturday, those gusts will be double that speed as per the forecasts. Some fans have already given up hope of seeing any racing action on that day, with one tweeting, “The gusts on Saturday could definitely be a problem for cars on the track”.

“If it’s blowing 55 Saturday I’m not sure they will hit the track as that’s only 18 mph from being hurricane force winds,” opined another fan. 

One user even believes that the Xfinity Series cars are not structurally stable enough to be able to handle such windy conditions, which may very well be true given how tough they have been to drive in the last couple of weekends. “The cars are gonna he all over the place. Especially the Xfinity cars already being out of shape,” they wrote.

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The situation might not be as dire as the Daytona 500, but there definitely is a lot of cause for concern. Do you think NASCAR will postpone the Xfinity Series race? Let us know what you believe.

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Written by:

Nilavro Ghosh

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Nilavro Ghosh is a NASCAR Writer at EssentiallySports, where he is known for his creative yet easy-to-read writing style. Before taking up his role as a sports journalist at ES, Nilavro has written for some of the top publishing houses, like The Telegraph. While most journalists stop at covering live events and taking the news to the readers, Nilavro goes the extra mile to give fans a platform for them to express their thoughts through his 'race reaction' pieces.
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Edited by:

Ariva Debnath