A senior NASCAR official says it will be having a discussion with Trackhouse Racing over Ross Chastain and Shane Van Gisbergen driving through the grass during the cool-down lap after the race on Sunday in an apparent attempt to add weight to their cars.
Cup Series managing director Brad Moran was asked about it on Tuesday during the weekly sanctioning body spotlight interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“We’ll be having some discussions with Trackhouse management, as well as their crew chiefs, and we’ll be giving the 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.”
Chastain and Van Gisbergen finished 24th and 25th respectively but were required to undergo inspection since both are playoff drivers. They left the second race of the first round 19 points above and 15 points below the cutline respectively.
Drivers stopping in other team's pit stalls
The other topic of note is the increased example of drivers stopping in one of their teammate or affiliates’ pit stall to tighten a loose lug before going on track. That is a pitting outside of the pit box penalty but there is a growing sentiment from fans that there should be an additional penalty attached to that decision.
With that said, Moran says the competition department is okay with the status quo.
“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,” Moran said. “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.”
