New Pit Road Rules: NASCAR will change its policies for speeding violations on pit road following confusion over an infraction for which eventual race-winner Sterling Marlin was never penalized a week ago at Las Vegas. NASCAR president Mike Helton announced the changes Sunday morning at the drivers meeting prior to the MBNA 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The new rules go into effect next weekend at Darlington Raceway. The key change is that, under green-flag conditions, the penalty for speeding on the way onto pit road will now be the same as the penalty for speeding off the pit lane. The new penalty will be what NASCAR is calling a pass through, meaning the offending car will have to come off the track and travel the length of pit road at its speed limit without stopping. Under the old rule, a car speeding on the way onto pit road during a green-flag stop was held for 15 seconds in its pit stall. A car speeding off pit road was brought back to its pit box for a stop-and-go penalty. During last week’ UAW 400 at Las Vegas, NASCAR officials said Marlin was speeding as he came to his pit stall after being spun out in Turn 4. NASCAR’ race control officials called for the 15-second penalty, but that message was not heard by the official working in Marlin’ pit stall. Marlin left without serving a penalty and NASCAR decided not to enforce any further sanction, saying that bringing Marlin back to pit road would be too severe of a penalty. Since the usual penalty for speeding on the exit to pit lane was to bring a car back in for a stop-and-go, that raised the question of why the sanction for speeding on the way out should be more severe for speeding on the way in. The rule change announced Sunday addresses that issue. Helton admitted Sunday that not giving Marlin a penalty last week might not have been the right decision. Helton said the change was made to avoid the kind of confusion and miscommunication that happened at Las Vegas. Under the rule that goes into effect next week, a driver speeding on the way in and on the way out on the same pit stop will be brought back in for a stop-and-go penalty. A driver who exceeds the pit road speed limit as he serves the pass through penalty for speeding will also get a stop-and-go. The penalty for speeding in or out of a pit stop made under yellow-flag conditions will not change – the offending car will be sent to the end of the longest line of traffic for the restart.(ThatsRacin.com)(3-10-2002) UPDATE: plus a nice breakdown at RacingOne: The New Pit Road Rules Speeding Entering Pit Road Current Penalty: 15 seconds New Penalty: Pass through at correct pit road speed. Speeding Exiting Pit Road Current Penalty: Stop and Go New Penalty: Pass through at correct pit road speed Entering and Exiting Pit Road Current Penalty: 15 seconds after stop; brought back for stop and go New Penalty: Stop and Go Speeding on Pass Through New Penalty: Stop and Go Multiple Violations: NASCAR’ Discretion.(RacingOne)(3-11-2002)
