LDN - Sports

Truex Jr., Furniture Row unhappy with NASCAR ruling

[July 15, 2016] By Jonathan Ingram, The Sports Xchange

Truex Jr., Furniture Row unhappy with NASCAR ruling

When drivers and crew chiefs gather for the pre-race meeting at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend, they are going to hear that there is no passing on the pit road to the left.

It was just such a ruling that cost Martin Truex, Jr. a shot at victory at the Kentucky Speedway last Saturday night.

The rule does not exist in writing, although two NASCAR officials stated that the there is no passing on the left after the race on Saturday night and again on Monday. Hence, the likelihood exists that drivers will be instructed not to pass on the left at New Hampshire.

Both Truex, Jr. and crew chief Cole Pearn insisted in private conversations with officials that Furniture Row Racing did not violate any rule when the driver sped up to enter his pit stall and momentarily passed leader Kevin Harvick's car, which was continuing down the pit road at the speed limit.

"I did what I've been doing every week," said Truex, Jr., describing the method of accelerating to the pit stall once past the closest timing line.

In effect, NASCAR made a seat-of-the-pants decision to enforce an unwritten rule. Initially, Pearn was told that the instruction is in the video used at driver meetings. But a team official said no such statement is made in the video, which covers the written rules on the pit road.

There's some confusion over whether drivers have been warned not to pass on the left as the teams queue up to enter the pit road in single file and whether this implies no passing once in the pits.

Bowing to the current effort by teams not to publicly speak out against NASCAR, Furniture Row has not spoken about the incident other than in discussions with officials and Truex Jr.'s post-race comments. The rule about overtly criticizing NASCAR is definitely not written, but has been enforced by a $35,000 fine against team owner/driver Tony Stewart earlier this year when he complained to the media about the lug nut rule being unsafe.

The fact Furniture Row team officials are not speaking out about the penalty confirms that the fine of Stewart is having the intended effect of dampening teams' criticism of NASCAR to the media.

What the pit procedure rules do say is that cars must enter the pits in single file. Also, if a driver ahead pulls into his pit stall, the trailing driver may then pass on the right. Finally, drivers cannot go through more than three adjacent pit stalls entering or exiting their own pit stall.

In addition, there is a pit road speed limit in effect at each track, where timing lines are used to record all drivers' times in each segment. But nothing about passing on the left.

In order to gain time, drivers have been speeding up once they peel off from the single file line to accelerate into their pits. Since the car will stop, if the pit stall is in the middle of the timing segment, there will not be any penalty for the acceleration beyond the pit road speed limit. The benefit is getting to one's pit stall faster and possibly gaining an advantage.

Under the scenario of "no passing on the left," the leader is the only driver able to accelerate into his pit stall -- again assuming it's located two or three stalls away from a timing line. Up until now, cars trailing the leader have been trying to do the same thing, but without necessarily passing the car ahead.

Steve O'Donnell, a NASCAR executive vice president, likened the situation to the three-second rule in the NBA. Only when a player camps out in the lane, goes this analogy, is the rule enforced. The problem with this analogy, of course, is that the NBA states the three-second rule and NASCAR's rulebook says nothing about passing on the left.

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In effect, NASCAR officials are saying that if a rule does not prohibit a choice by teams and drivers, then the sanctioning body gets to decide whether a choice is a violation. In other words, the rule says a driver may pass on the right, which implies that there's no passing on the left. Up until Saturday night, NASCAR did not enforce this unwritten rule and teams up and down the pit road have chosen to accelerate entering their pits once past a timing line.

It now comes to light that NASCAR was OK with a driver pulling alongside the driver ahead -- as in not overextending one's stay in the NBA pit lane but being able to stay a little longer than three seconds.

"If you kind of pull up alongside a car, sure, that's happened," O'Donnell said. Truex, Jr. actually passed leader Kevin Harvick, whose team then insisted that NASCAR review his pit stop. In the videotape, it's clear that Truex, Jr. timed his acceleration perfectly and that the choice of pit stall location helped him gain some time and edge past Harvick.

So if there is no explicit rule, then how did Harvick and his team know to ask NASCAR to get a review? Therein lies the real dilemma.

Teams have known that NASCAR has been letting the practice of accelerating into one's pit stall ride. And they have used the protective cover of mid-field positions to disguise what they were doing. Choice of pit stalls is done in the order of qualifying, so crew chiefs have been trying to choose pits according to timing lines and the opportunity to accelerate into the stall -- especially when near the front of the field.

Perhaps Harvick, who is a master of gamesmanship, simply took advantage of NASCAR having to make an on-the-spot call and hoped for the best with his complaint -- after his car exited the pits in second behind Truex, Jr. in the final round of pit stops. (The most controversial officiating incident prior to the Kentucky race also involved Harvick. Many thought he gamed the final restart at the Talladega Superspeedway last fall to his advantage. NASCAR apparently agreed with that view and subsequently revised its green-white-checkered procedures.)

Perhaps Pearn and Truex, Jr. just weren't clever enough about breaking the unwritten rule and would have been fine if the Furniture Row Chevy had merely pulled alongside Harvick's Chevy.

There is a safety element to maintaining order on the pit road. And accelerating into one's pit stall raises the possibility of a crewman getting injured. But so far NASCAR in 18 races has not previously called out any driver for a penalty for passing on the left on the pit road.

One would hope all of this is clarified at New Hampshire. Given that NASCAR uses video to police the pit road, one suspects that "pulling alongside" will be OK and passing will not. Ultimately, that evens the playing field for all cars behind the leader, who can always accelerate into his stall according to the location of the timing lines.

Imagine the same scenario of a mid-race drive-through penalty happening in the middle of the Chase, where getting a victory could make the difference between advancing to the next round or not. As it stands, Furniture Row missed an opportunity to score three more bonus points that come with a victory, which can make the difference in advancing out of the first round of the Chase.

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