1. Rain: Two years ago, it was lightning with barely any rain. This year, it was rain with no lightning. Either way, they both forced a red flag for an hour near the end of the race, producing a short 15-20 minute sprint after the eventual restart.

Summer weather in the Finger Lakes region can be quite unpredictable. Hot and muggy. Chilly. Dry. Rain. Floods. You name it. The old adage, if you don't like the weather wait five minutes, is more like wait two minutes here. The way systems navigate over the hills and valleys can be difficult to figure out.

On Saturday, there was always a threat of rain. Yet, the clouds kept missing the track. However, when I drove home, downtown Watkins Glen was soaked.

Sunday, we weren't so lucky as a sudden downpour caused streams of water. Race cars had difficulty keeping up with the safety car -- if they stayed on the track at all -- despite the tower's command to tighten up the field.

Eventually, they had to stop it. Much to the chagrin of the crowd. But what was more frustrating was how long it took to wave the green flag after cars got back on course for some full course yellow laps. To compound the problem, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura lost a wheel in the esses after a pit stop, delaying the start even further.

When it finally went green, the other WTR entry, the #40, continued to have problems warming up their tires as they did all race, and fell to fourth place. The #7 Porsche Penske Motorsport car got the win driven by Dane Cameron and Filipe Nasr. And this time, they did not get disqualified in post race tech.

It was a great finish for all classes when they finally went back to green. But, we sure would have loved a full six hours of racing, which we lost out on twice now in the past three years. But that's Upstate NY weather for you.

2. Hearty Comeback: Last week at Le Mans, the Heart of Racing's sole Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 entry driven at the time by Daniel Mancinelli was moving out of the way of an oncoming Prototype at Indianapolis, got on the wet portion of the track, slid into the tire wall, and flipped on its roof.

Nothing tops the feeling of success or failure at Le Mans. But you can take the edge off a bit when one week later, you win the Six Hours of The Glen. And when you win it in such dramatic, unlikely fashion, the euphoria can help you forget a lot.

That's what happened to their GTD Pro Aston Martin Vantage GT3 entry driven by Ross Gunn and Alex Riberas. At the restart, they were sitting in second place behind the Chevrolet Corvette driven at the time by Tommy Milner.

Due to the timing of their prior pit stops, the rain induced full course yellow and the subsequent red flag (where unlike F1, no one can work on their car, including refueling), it was, as the other Corvette driver Nicky Catsburg called it, a lottery. Gunn pushed hard, even attempting an outside pass on Milner, hoping if anything the Corvette would run dry.

And it did ... entering the very last lap. Into the pits for a quick splash and go, as the Aston Martin sailed away to victory. Another interesting cause and effect to all this is that the overall leader had started his penultimate lap 10 seconds too early for Corvette, which meant there were two laps left instead of one.

Many years ago, a situation like that occurred by mere seconds which determined how many laps were run and ultimately decided the winner. Corvette probably wished IMSA made the same scoring error like they did at the Rolex 24, and checkered the race a lap early...

Instead, the Heart of Racing team experienced the age old racing experience -- sometimes the racing gods taketh, sometimes the racing gods giveth.

3. IMSA vs. WEC Car Count: When the LMDh rules were first announced by IMSA, I figured IMSA would easily "win" the prototype car count battle over WEC. That's because WEC had already announced their Hypercar rules, which were far more complicated and expensive.

But then, the two sides got together and decided to allow each other's ruleset into their series and try to even everything up via the Balance of Performance. Scepticism aside, it appeared to be a win-win for each, and a bonanza for fans to witness full fields.

The prototype fields are large for both. No complaints there. But it is interesting how none of the Hypercar manufacturers (Toyota, Ferrari, Peugeot, Isotta Fraschini) have come to IMSA while LMDh chassis (Cadillac, BMW, Porsche, Lamborghini, and Alpine) have gone to WEC. Only Acura is just staying in IMSA, while Alpine is only running their LMDh car in WEC. So, it's WEC 9-5 in the manufacturer count.

Isotta Fraschini is too small to run in IMSA. Who knows what Alpine and Peugeot's future marketing strategy is in America? The two most surprising ones are Toyota and Ferrari. Both have massive markets in America, and as for Ferrari, a stratospheric fanbase. It just doesn't make sense.

Aston Martin will be joining the ranks in both series, but there's a good chance Lamborghini will pull out of IMSA and stay in WEC only due to budgetary reasons. Another surprise considering the huge percentage of cars they sell in the U.S.

Sure, Le Mans is a massive draw, but so is the American marketplace. And yes, you do have to go through the homologation for each series and pay the IMSA marketing fee, but that's peanuts to some of these companies. I would love to see Toyota and Ferrari in IMSA, and whoever else wants to jump across the pond.

Lobotomy of the Race Award: This goes to what happened in the Michelin Pilot Challenge race on Saturday. Before the race even started, Tyler Chambers driving the No. 89 HART Honda FLK TCR was trying to regain his spot on the pace lap after a delayed start on the formation lap. He wound up colliding with the No. 5 KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering Alfa Romeo Giulietta Veloce TCR driven by William Tally.

They both actually finished, but way, way down after repairs. In any case, no matter whose fault it was, crashing before the race starts is an automatic lobotomy.

Special Mention: Once again, it goes to another team which crashed hard in practice just before qualifying, destroying their car, needing to go to another chassis, and building that one up.

This time it was the #25 BMW M Team RLL entry. Connor de Phillippi crashed the BMW M Hybrid V8 on Saturday. The team had to truck in a new chassis from their Indianapolis shop, 10 hours away. It arrived at 1:30 AM, and when the mechanics should have been laying their heads on comfortable pillows, they went to work transferring the key components of the crashed car, according to IMSA rules.

They wound up starting from pit lane. The car finished in sixth place on the lead lap, less than a second behind its teammate. Another set of massive kudos to anther set of crew.

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