First lapped car to get lap back under new rules

DOVER, Del. -- As part of NASCAR's new procedures that prohibit racing back to the yellow, the sanctioning body announced Saturday at Dover International Speedway that one car will get a lap back during each caution period.

	From left to right: NASCAR Vice President of Corporate Communications Jim Hunter, Winston Cup Series Director John Darby and NASCAR Event Director David Hoots address the media at Dover. Credit: Autostock

NASCAR officials held a closed-door meeting with Winston Cup and Busch Series teams Saturday to outline the new procedures. Media was not permitted, but Winston Cup director John Darby and managing event director David Hoots held an impromptu press conference to address the changes.

One of the main rule changes was to allow the first car not on the lead lap to regain a lap. Previously, the leader of the race would sometimes slow to allow one or two cars back on the lead lap.

Under the new procedure, the first car not on the lead lap would automatically regain a lap, regardless of where the car was in relation to the leader - a "small buffer to replace one of the elements we've removed," Darby said.

"For 53 or 54 years, the competitors in Winston Cup racing, one of the elements they've found useful and have been able to take advantage of through that time period is the ability to gain a lap back once the caution's displayed," Darby said.

"As everybody in here realizes, that has evaporated a lot in the last couple years, but it was still an element of Winston Cup racing that the competitors could take advantage of from time to time.

"To help soften that blow, we will move one car, every caution period, back around one lap -- with the exception of the last 10 laps of the race."

Darby said that car could be more than one lap down. If the first car not on the lead laps were 10 laps down, for instance, that car would be nine laps down on the restart.

Darby said the car allowed to get a lap back wouldn't be able to improve its position. That car will pit with the lap-down cars and then will be moved to the end of the lead-lap cars before the green flag.

Darby said there was more benefit to giving the first car not on the lead lap its lap back than giving a lap back to the closest car to the leader.

NASCAR announced Thursday that racing back to the caution flag would no longer be permitted. Other parts of the rules change are:

"Everybody needs to understand that it's the highest scored position not on the lead lap," Darby said. "It won't be the car closest to the leader. If there's 21 cars on the lead lap, the competitor that'll be affected by receiving that lap back will be the 22nd on the scoreboard.

"That competitor may be two laps down, may be four laps down. It'll be the first car not on the lead lap."

NASCAR also made a small alteration to its pit road rules. All cars will be required to come on to pit road single-file, and any passing must be made to the right. Passing to the left would result in a penalty of restarting at the end of the longest line for a caution penalty or a pass-through on pit road for a green penalty.

But it was not racing back to the yellow that received the most attention. While Darby admitted that freezing the field at the instant the caution comes out was not possible, he didn't anticipate major problems. NASCAR will add additional scorers to help settle problems, specifically cars that are racing when the yellow is out.

Darby said simple track position would determine the scoring order when a yellow is displayed. If a car is ahead of another, whether 6 inches or 6 car-lengths, that car will get the position. The same goes for a car off the lead lap who is racing the leader.

"If a competitor has a fender on the leader at the time the caution's displayed, then, yes, he will be judged as having his lap back at that point," Darby said. "We'll review it, we'll make a call on it -- end of story."

Hoots, the procedures director during a race, guesses that figuring out disputed positions would add only a lap or two to each caution. And Darby said that if a dispute can't be settled, NASCAR would revert to the last scored green flag lap.

"It's going to add some more elements that we're going to have to make more judgment calls during the event, but I think we're capable of doing that," Hoots said. "It's just working through the logistics of it."

Judgment calls cannot be appealed, NASCAR insisted. A call on who was ahead when the caution comes out is a "balls and strikes" call by the control tower, Darby said, and can't be challenged.

Darby said the new procedures were a work in progress, and he would keep a close watch on Saturday's Stacker 200 Busch Series race for any potential flaws. Darby admitted that tracking the leader and cars around the leader -- whether they were a lap down or not -- would not be the likely problem.

"The hot spots are the obvious: It's not going to be the leader, it's not going to be second place, it's not going to be the person that's racing the leader to get the lap back," Darby said. "The hot spots are going to be the 25th, 26th and 27th position that are in the back racing. How do they come out of that deal? That will be a lot of the focus today."

Dover, in effect, will be an easy test. Next week, there's Talladega, where four-wide racing is commonplace. Clearly, settling positions when a caution comes out will be difficult there.

"David and I are going to get lots of sleep before we get to Talladega," Darby said.