NASCAR will issue restrictor plates with smaller holes for the rest of the UAW-Ford 500 weekend as teams scrambled Saturday morning to get their cars ready for qualifying. The new restrictor plates will have four holes of seven-eighths of an inch in diameter, one-64th of an inch smaller than the ones used in practice Friday when #24-Jeff Gordon reached a speed of 198.689 mph in the opening session at Talladega Superspeedway. The change should slow the speeds by 2-5 mph, according to crew chiefs,. Teams were informed of the change Saturday morning. There are no practice sessions left on the schedule and the cars will be impounded after qualifying. NASCAR officials are expected to address the media concerning the change later this morning. The speeds are higher than they have been at Talladega because of the repaved surface, which is much smoother than the old surface.(SceneDaily.com)(10-7-2006)
MORE: NASCAR called a 6:30 a.m. crew chief meeting on Saturday to hand out smaller restrictor plates to push the speeds back down before Sunday’s race on the freshly paved Talladega oval. The new plates knocked the speeds from Jeff Gordon’s top mark of 198.689 mph in practice to David Gilliland’s pole-winning mark of 191.712. “We tried to downplay it and we didn’t want to make a knee-jerk reaction,” NASCAR competition director Robin Pemberton said in explaining the delay in changing the plates. “We were hoping that the speeds would go the other way.” When they didn’t after Friday’s second practice session, NASCAR officials decided to err on the side of caution by slowing the cars. Despite the change, NASCAR did not work a practice session into the schedule so teams could adjust their cars with the new plates.(Associated Press)(10-8-2006)
