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MONTREAL – Take a bow, NASCAR and Goodyear.

Last weekend the NASCAR nation was up in arms, calling for both Goodyear and NASCAR to be tarred and feathered for what was judged to be the worst NASCAR race in history, the Allstate 400 at the Brickyard.

The wrong choice of tire made for a terrible afternoon for all involved and in its aftermath, NASCAR officials were left apologizing while tire partner Goodyear was forced to come up with a revised policy that was aimed at eliminating a repeat of what occurred in last Sunday's race anytime in the future.

It appeared that the worst was over for both NASCAR and Goodyear. What happened last weekend was the concurrence of a bizarre set of circumstances, a perfect storm, a once in a decade occurrence.

Or was it?

With skies threatening and a packed house of fervent Canadian stock car fans at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve waiting for the start of Saturday's NAPA 200 Nationwide race, there were plenty of long faces in the NASCAR compound as it appeared as though Mother Nature was about to deliver another body blow to both NASCAR and Goodyear.

NASCAR had a contingency plan on the books for racing in the rain on a road course for nearly a decade, but no one really cared to use it.

If the rain came, teams would install windshield wipers and some would install makeshift defrosters for the windshield.

And Goodyear would be forced to haul out specially designed rain tires that, well, no one knew exactly when they were made. There were differing opinions on that. But the consensus of opinion from both NASCAR and Goodyear was that the majority of the tires were between 6 and 10 years old.

Regardless of when they were made, even more critical was that they had been sitting in storage at some undisclosed location waiting for their competition debut.

It was about to be show time.

"They keep throwing it at us, don't they?" said NASCAR's vice president of competition Robin Pemberton.

It was going to be tough to top last year's Nationwide race at the picturesque Canadian track anyway. It arguably was the most memorable NASCAR race of the year, one that featured a wild finish and two drivers declaring themselves the victor.

So how was NASCAR going to top that?

It was about to.

And despite her best efforts, Mother Nature lost this round to the racers and the fans.

The first NASCAR points race run in the rain was an entertaining, exciting and competitive race that kept the fans on their feet, despite the howling wind, pouring rain and occasional bolt of lightning that somehow failed to convince them to seek shelter from the elements.

No, they weren't going anywhere. Not when their favorite Canadian drivers were running up front and putting on one hell of a show for the local fans.

In the end, the hardy and loyal Canadian stock car fans got to witness a piece of racing history and fellow countryman Ron Fellows take the checkered flag.

It just couldn't have been scripted any better.

After facing an avalanche of criticism for its tires last weekend, there were few critical comments this time around. They did their job.

The general consensus from those who got to experience it firsthand was that everyone had enjoyed it.

"Racing in the rain was a lot of fun," Carl Edwards said. "I'm glad we didn't wreck. I just wished it wouldn't have started raining so hard and we could have raced a little longer."

Perhaps the biggest complaint voiced by Edwards' fellow competitors was about the poor visibility, a result of a combination of foggy windshields and the water spraying off the cars in front of each driver.

The picture of Edwards using a squeegee to clean his windshield under caution was at first comical until one realized the kind of conditions the drivers were facing. There also was the issue of severe hydroplaning, which wasn't attributable to the tires (even though they had hardened somewhat over the years in storage). It was more the result of the track's extremely wet surface.

At one point, parts of the track were completely submerged. Where there wasn't what appeared to be a small pond on the track, there were dozens of puddles dotting much of the track's flat surface.

There were wrecks. There usually are in a stock car race. But despite the extreme conditions, there were not as many as you might expect. Most occurred, oddly enough, while the field was under caution, when the slow speeds caused windshields to fog and just seeing past the hood of the race car became a real challenge.

"I was turning (the wiper) on in the low speed corners, and I couldn't really use it," said Montreal native Patrick Carpentier. "I couldn't see through the back window. There was very, very low visibility."

The hometown favorite, Carpentier found himself playing the role of bridesmaid for the second year in a row.

"As we circled around, I kept hoping I'd see the 5 car (race winner Fellows) sitting off on the side somewhere," joked Carpentier after the race.

Surprisingly, much of the race was incident-free as drivers gingerly made their way around the 2.71-mile temporary circuit. It was easy to see early on that this was going to be a race of survival.

The more serious wrecks occurred toward the end of the race, when the rain was at its heaviest and flooded the track. They involved both the novice and the experienced road course experts, as young phenom Joey Logano and national hero/F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve ended the race with crumpled sheet metal.

"It was raceable as long as you could see where you were going," Villeneuve said. "As long as you could get the rain off of your windshield."

This wasn't the first time Villeneuve had experienced racing in extreme wet conditions and he showed it, thrilling the crowd with his cool and calculated moves. He provided a good deal of the race's drama when early in the race, he and Fellows battled for position in a multi-lap war of wills that brought the crowd to its feet numerous times.

While under caution late in the race and with the field practically crawling around the track in the pouring rain, Logano slid his Toyota into a concrete wall.

The rookie driver's wreck elicited a sharp response from crew chief Dave Rogers.

"The priority in this sport has to be our drivers, and you had a number of drivers on the radio saying they can't see and are hydroplaning under caution," Rogers said. "I don't think as a series we did a good job of listening to those so we fell victim.

"When drivers are saying enough is enough, we need to heed that caution and we did not today.

Then, in the same breath, he added, "I have to be honest, I had a lot of fun today. This is pretty cool. It's the first points race in the rain.

After 48 wet and wild laps, it was over. Pemberton surveyed the track conditions and pulled the plug on another memorable Canadian Nationwide race.

"This is a cool experiment that NASCAR did," said veteran road racer Boris Said, who finished fifth. It wasn't his first time racing in wet conditions, either.

"We're having fun. If it had just quit pouring. …"

The track conditions and the shortened race length surely will elicit a good deal of criticism.

However, this time around, NASCAR and Goodyear got it right.

In a battle against the elements, man is, more often than not, on the losing end. Not this time.

For the second week in a row, NASCAR and its fans were dealt a difficult hand and faced with little choice but to play it.

What a difference a week makes