NASCAR issued a rules bulletin Wednesday afternoon to change the uncontrolled tire penalty. The new rule applies to all three national series and is as follows:
10.9.10.4.1 TIRES AND WHEELS/SERVICING
.a Crew members must remove tire(s)/wheel(s) from the outside half of their assigned pit box in a controlled manner before the vehicle exits the pit box.
- No safety issues. For example, tire/wheel does not roll into the traffic lanes of pit road, removed tire/wheel does not return to the outside half of the pit box, tire/wheel may not be thrown or bounced, etc.
- Removed tire/wheel from the outside half of the pit box must not exceed the proximity limits as outlined in the following diagram:
“This is something we’ve been looking at for some time over the last year or two,” said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR vice president of officiating and technical inspection. “The evolution of the pit stop has changed over time. There was a time when we needed to officiate that call based on an arm’s length.
“We have reviewed that numerous times and looked at it and feel like, in coordination with working with the teams, the timing is right to go ahead and remove that part of the rule from the rule book. We will continue to officiate uncontrolled tires. They still have to be controlled from the outside half of the pit box to the inside half.”
Competition officials also mandated that teams must change outside tires first during four-tire stops, a safety measure intended to reduce crewmembers’ exposure to other cars leaving adjacent pit stalls. This change will be in effect for all three NASCAR national series starting next week at Watkins Glen International.
“This is something we’ve been working with the teams on,” Sawyer said. “They came to us and they had been looking at changing the inside tires first, and Watkins Glen would have been the first event that they would have been trying to do that.
“Through the collaboration, through some additional conversations, we felt like that going forward starting at Watkins Glen, for all four-tire stops you’d have to change the outside tires first. That’ll go into effect across all three national series and at every event starting at Watkins Glen next week.”
— NASCAR.com —