The World of Outlaws Late Model Series elected to declare its second Friday night preliminary A-Main official due to impending weather with nine laps remaining.
The split-field features set the lineups for Saturday’s finale event at the track, which radar indicated was right under a developing storm.
The storm went just south of the track, and the local sprint car series was able to run its race in its entirety, which brought some criticism over social media.
World of Outlaws Late Model Series Director Steve Francis said if he could go back, there’s a chance the series may have made a different decision. Francis was not only thinking of the drivers and their safety, but about the fans and what weather advisors were directing the series to do (a take-shelter had been issued at Talladega Super Speedway).
“With hindsight being 20-20, we may have made a different decision,” Francis said. “We thought we were protecting everybody; the radar had the storm right on top of us. If the storm hit us, we could have wadded up five cars or had someone hurt. We had 3,000 fans in the stands that we wanted to get to shelter. It was a no-win situation we were put in and we made our best guess.”
Francis took a tally of drivers pacing around the field during the caution – not all drivers gave a signal. Two drivers gave a thumbs-up and approximately 10 drivers gave thumbs-down signals.
“(The storm) was just barely to our South, but all radars had it landing right on top of us,” Francis said. “We were making the most educated decision that we could at the time
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