NASCAR will be talking to Trackhouse Racing after the team’s drivers, Shane Van Gisbergen and Ross Chastain, were seen driving over the grass post-race during the cool down lap in an attempt to gain weight. NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran has confirmed that the act at the World Wide Technology Raceway was under the sport’s radar.
Both drivers in question went over the grass before taking the emergency lane that led to the pit road. The odd behavior was spotted by other drivers. As seen in many forms of motorsports, drivers often go over grass and mud to add more weight since the dirt sticks to the hot tires. The added weight potentially helps them pass the minimum post-race weight requirement.
However, NASCAR has rules in place to penalize such actions and thus, Moran revealed that the sport will take up the matter with Trackhouse to ensure it doesn’t repeat. He said:
“We’ll be having some discussions with Trackhouse management, as well as their crew chiefs, and we’ll be giving all the teams some information regarding that this week.
“But yeah, it certainly caught our radar and you know, we have rules that could put the teams in a real bad spot when we see that. So we’ll make it pretty clear to them, moving forward starting at Bristol, what that means.”
Another concern for NASCAR is drivers stopping on the pit boxes of their teammates to tighten loose lug nuts. While the action incurs a penalty, Moran said the sport was willing to let go at this juncture in the playoffs, especially since it does not want to see tires coming off on racetracks. He said:
“Everybody’s pushing and it’s game time now and we’re in the playoffs and everybody’s trying to get everything they can get. We certainly would rather have, and it was discussed when we saw it the first time and it certainly caught our attention, and we went back and clarified the rules a little bit.
“We certainly do not want tires out on the racetrack when cars are running at speed and if there’s a way to prevent that from a safety standpoint, and if you’re under green, that’s a pretty big penalty. … And so right now we’re comfortable with it.
“Who knows where we’ll be in another eight races. We may go back and look at it, but certainly from our standpoint, we want the tires to stay on and if they come off, we hope that happens on pit road, certainly not on the racetrack like we’ve seen a few years ago.
“We lean on the side of safety and feel the penalty in adequate and the way it’s set up keeps everybody in a good place at this time.”
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