NASCAR adjusts practice and qualifying schedules for next three races
NASCAR has made tweaks to the practice and qualifying schedules at Las Vegas, Phoenix and Auto Club Speedway in the goal of avoiding the mess that happened before qualifying at Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The first practice at the three tracks has been shortened by 10 minutes. Qualifying has been moved back five minutes. If you’re doing the math in your head, that’s an adjustment of 15 minutes. More inspection time!
“We have a good track record of making adjustments that are in the best interest of the teams and the garage area,” Richard Buck, NASCAR’s managing director of the Sprint Cup Series, said, “and the revisions in these upcoming weekend schedules are an example of that.”
The revised schedules, which also note that qualifying inspection now begins five minutes after the completion of Friday’s practice, are for the three West Coast races. No adjustments have been made for races beyond the Auto Club event.
At Atlanta, 13 cars didn’t get a chance to make a qualifying attempt after not getting through inspection. Those cars included Jeff Gordon, Matt Kenseth and Tony Stewart, as well as the four cars who ended up missing the race because they were on the sidelines during qualifying.
The blockage in the inspection line apparently stemmed from cars needing to make multiple attempts to get through. The order in which cars go through inspection is determined by a random draw.
Will the tweaks work? Well, they can’t hurt, and the guess is here that teams now know where the lines are when it comes to pushing the boundaries of what’s legal. If there’s a similar issue at Las Vegas on Friday, there may be something fundamentally wrong with the process and the rules package.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
