“We IM’d all of pit road.”
Over the weekend, the NASCAR Cup Series raced at Talladega Superspeedway.
Fuel saving has been an issue at Talladega and Daytona in recent years. On Sunday, NASCAR came into the event with a new plan to help avoid this situation.
Stage one was the longest stage of the race. The final two stages were shortened so teams didn’t need to make a green flag pit stop in the final two.
But for stage one, the fuel saving continued.
Meanwhile, all three RFK Racing cars elected not to fuel save, they drove out to over a 40 second lead. They received a standings ovation from the crowd as they finally pulled into the pit lane.
All but those three cars, were well off the pace. So much so, that NASCAR issued a warning to every time on the pit lane…
Joey Logano flips at Talladega Superspeedway (Video)
NASCAR says they threatened the black flag for not meeting minimum speed at Talladega
“We can IM individual teams or the entirety of pit road,” Mike Forde said during the Hauler Talk Podcast.
“And so we IM’d all of pit road and said, ‘Hey, there are X amount of cars that have not reached minimum speed. If you guys don’t pick it up, then we’re going to have to step in.’ “
“And soon after, they picked it up. So that message was delivered, and that’s why we did not black flag anybody.”
Minimum speed varies from track to track. For Talladega, the rule is 12.5% of the pole position.
“It depends on a number of different factors,” Forde added. “At Darlington, we’ll give teams the benefit of the doubt a little bit more because of tire wear. Over the course of a tire run, speeds go much, much lower, and we don’t want to park cars because of the tire wear. So we’ll give them a much larger cushion.”
“We’re not looking to put cars out of the race. There are sponsors paying good money to be part of our sport. And there are fans that come to the race and want to see. Even if their driver’s not in contention and might not win, they’d like to see them at least on the race track. So we’re not in the business of putting cars out. We’re going to keep them out there on the race track for the fans.”
NASCAR Race Results: Talladega Superspeedway (October 25, 2026)
