RMS weepers like hitting 'black ice' says Andretti

Michael Andretti has seen just about everything in his 18 year CART career and therefore he was perfectly placed to describe the dangers of practicing on ovals when the track conditions are not perfect as seen at Rockingham Motor Speedway yesterday.

Team Motorola and Michael Andretti have arrived at Rockingham Motor Speedway to begin preparations for the inaugural Rockingham 500 to be held on Saturday, September 22 on the newly built 1.5-mile oval.

Although the weather cooperated somewhat on Thursday with partly sunny skies, there was water seeping through the track from the previous days rain. Due to that fact, CART postponed practice today and Andretti and the rest of the field ran only reconnaissance laps behind the pace car. According to a statement by Rockingham Speedway the ground has been soaked with rain over the last 72 hours and with the cooler temperatures the water hasn't evaporated and the ground water has seeped through the track asphalt.

Overnight, track construction workers are going to build shafts in the affected areas and it will act as a well so any water remaining in the ground will soak into the well and the weepers will dry. CART is currently meeting to decide how practice and qualifications will be handled on Friday for the Rockingham 500.

"Rockingham Speedway has done a really nice job on the facility itself," said Andretti. "I think the front straightaway is beautiful with the way that they have built the suites and viewing areas for the fans. The surface seems to be pretty good on the track as well.

"We won't really be able to tell much about the layout of the track until we are up to speed. I think with the short straightaways it won't be as fast as some tracks but there could be an issue if someone tries to pass on the straight and doesn't complete their pass before the turn. We only ran a few laps today because of the problem with weepers (areas on the track where water has seeped through the asphalt). The weepers on the track were tough to see so to run at speed would have been difficult.

"To give an example, to run today would have been like driving in the winter at night and coming upon a patch of black ice that you can't see. The track people are working on getting it fixed so I think we'll be fine once we get some track time. I think we need to get at least an hour of running to get familiar with the track and the racing line and we'll be ready to race on Saturday."