NASCAR teams and the sanction have a never ending cat and mouse game going on in terms of the gray area within the rule book
NASCAR is trying their best to enforce the rule book. Said rule book is thicker than ever. All those additional pages are an effort to reduce the gray area as seen by the million dollar race teams.
Yet, every time NASCAR adds a page, teams have geniuses that are heftily paid to find a way around said rule. Or, they just ignore it completely and hope they don’t get caught.
Honestly, they’re trying to do what no other racing sanction has been able to do, create a level playing field. NASCAR is doing the best job of any racing sanction in the world when it comes to discovering illegal cars. The cars roll through a digital inspection scan before and after the race.
And for the top 3 finishers, those cars are hauled back to North Carolina at the conclusion of the race to be stripped apart and looked at from every angle. For the championship weekend, they do that same tear down inspection at the race track.
Yet, with the added pages and the added inspections, teams still feel there’s no car that’s 100% legal. At least, that’s the way the competition direction for Stewart-Haas Racing feels about it.
Bob Pockrass: There’s a feeling in the garage that there’s no car that’s 100% legal with the way the rules are. Will there always be a gray area?
Tony Stewart on NASCAR rules
“The sanctioning bodies have to write the rules. It’s the teams job to interpret the rules and try to take advantage of every gray area that’s available to them,” Tony Stewart said from the Homestead-Miami Speedway media center.
“That’s been a part of racing from the beginning of time. And it’s not going to stop at the end of this season. It’s part of the sport. It always will be part of the sport.”
“Technology changes so fast. It’s a very hard process for NASCAR to keep up with and stay ahead of. In my time in NASCAR, they’ve had to react to most things.”
“It’s very hard for them to get ahead of things. In the perfect world, if they could get ahead of it, it would make all this a lot easier.”
“But, the teams are very creative. It’s very hard for the sanctioning body to anticipate what we’re going to produce out of the rules. With that, I don’t know if they can ever get caught up to what the teams are doing.”
“This year’s a perfect example with the Hawkeye system. They keep coming out with better ways to tech the cars. But, that’s going to have to keep evolving, to keep up with what these teams are doing.”
“It’s just part of the process, it’s part of the cat and mouse game that’s always been a part of auto racing. No matter whether it’s NASCAR or any other sanctioning body.”
More
NASCAR team owner Tony Stewart comments on the NASCAR inspection process
Greg Zipadelli says no car is 100% legal to the NASCAR rule book
NASCAR is looking at disqualifications for failing post-race tech in 2019
