Last Lap: Racing after wreckin'?

Like many folks stricken with impatience, nothing frustrates me worse than being hung up in traffic when in a rush. Hurry up and wait? That's pretty much my idea of hell.

I'm as "go or get off the pot" as it gets.

And that's just during a typical trip to the grocery store.

	Marty Smith

Put $150,000 and a shiny trophy at stake, and I'd come out of my skin cussing anything that slowed me down -- especially a car with no hood and seven cylinders that couldn't take my '95 Ford Ranger in the quarter-mile.

That said, under the current point system I fully understand the necessity for Winston Cup teams to repair damaged cars and return to the track as rapidly as possible. Every last position in the running order is crucial, even if it earns just three points.

Come late November, those three points could prove the difference between fifth and sixth place in the final championship standings, and therefore end up being worth, oh, roughly 150 grand.

But don't tell that excuse to the guy you held up at Martinsville during his only shot to win a race all year. He'd tell you to shove that wad of dough where the sun don't shine. It's a courtesy call. Your day is shot to hell and he has an opportunity to do something special. Let him. It'll come back to you.

But these days that rarely happens. Lapped traffic and mangled racecars have become a problem. You hear drivers complain every week about slow cars impeding their ascent through the field, especially in a downtrodden Busch Series that employs several "field-fillers" each week.

Should slower or heavily damaged cars be allowed back on the track?

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Intimid8r: NASCAR already has rules in place for this exact situation. A team has one chance to return the car to the track and show they are capable of maintaining a speed within a certain percentage of the qualifying speeds. If they are not able to do so, they must return to the garage. Perhaps the rule needs to be adjusted so that a higher speed is required, as well as an official's consent, to return to the track.

Another possibility might be to not allow a heavily damaged car to return to the track under green-flag conditions. If they return to the tail end of the longest line under yellow, there should be sufficient time to pull the car off the track before it gets in the way.

It appears as if Big E is well versed regarding the sometimes quirky contents of the NASCAR rulebook, and brings up a valid proposition when suggesting that the minimum speed is often a bit too minimum.

When a car is involved in an accident, NASCAR usually allows the driver some five laps to reach and maintain the required minimum speed. If unable to do so, he will be posted by scoring and sent home. And if that's the case, the car is awfully slow.

Just last weekend, I was standing in the pre-race drivers meeting when lead race official David Hoots informed the competitors that the minimum required speed in the Sharpie 500 was 17.94 seconds around the half-mile Bristol bullring. Seventeen ninety-four? The leaders were running 15.7s.

That's more than two full seconds off the pace at a track that takes just 16 seconds to circuit in heavy traffic. Too much leeway, I'd say.

Tracks like Bristol and Martinsville are unique cases, though. At half-mile short tracks, where the competition is tighter than Jennifer Lopez's jumpsuit, simply getting out of the way isn't simple at all. It's not like Michigan or one of the restrictor-plate tracks that present several racing grooves to move out of the leaders' path.

	Credit: Autostock

RJR_71_03: Absolutely not. I think the major issue with slower cars is CO2, known to us as carbon monoxide. It's already sidelined one driver for the rest of his life, and I believe it was Christian Fittipaldi that had to be rushed to the hospital after the Watkins Glen race. Heavily damaged racecars are also what other drivers sometimes call "mobile roadblocks."

As we saw Saturday night with Robby Gordon, there's no excuse, or patience for a car that's 60 laps down, mechanical or otherwise. Slower cars cause wrecks, and I think they should run a maximum of 10 laps, then be excluded from the race. It just doesn't make sense.

Aside from a slight chemical misinterpretation, Ned Leary's response is excellent. As many readers so eloquently suggested, CO2 is not carbon monoxide, rather what we exhale a million times a day. (It's mind-boggling what that one little oxygen particle can do.)

Of the 1000 or so responses to this question, Leary was the first to respond and the only one I saw that discussed the ramifications to the driver actually piloting the damaged machine.

Carbon monoxide poisoning is a major concern to NASCAR officials, who recently developed a filtration system to help remedy the chemical's adverse effect on drivers. Rick Mast's career ended because of it, and many drivers, including Fittipaldi and Tony Stewart, have experienced inhalation issues in the past.

With today's enclosed cockpits, airflow through the car's interior is at a minimum, allowing pockets of colorless, odorless CO to form. As we've seen, that can be extremely dangerous. Ask Coach Pasteur:

coachgiggles: Just a little correction -- carbon monoxide is CO, carbon dioxide is CO2. CO2 is perfectly safe -- it is what we exhale -- but CO inhibits the distribution of oxygen in our system. But yes, there needs to be something done about the wrecked cars. My only problem is how. Some cars have a little damage (or a lot) and can still run about as fast as some of the unwrecked cars. But the cars may not be as structurally sound -- which could result in more extensive injuries if an accident were to occur.

	Credit: Autostock

Also, you have to worry more about debris off of a wrecked car getting on the track and causing some problems. But I think about Dale Jr.'s car two years ago at Daytona (500). It was hurt -- they had to put a new front end on it -- but it was faster than a lot of the cars out there. So should he have been forced off the track or not? It is going to come down to a judgment call -- which is hard for NASCAR to implement.

Why, coach? Seventy percent of NASCAR rulings are judgment calls already. And while its true that wrecked cars are sometimes as fast as the leaders, they have no business racing the leaders when they're 50 laps down. I don't care if they're the fastest car on the track. See: Robby Gordon last weekend.

One or two laps down is different. Several responders complained about Gordon's effort last weekend. Gordon was more than 60 laps down and as fast as the leaders, but ended up in the fence for racing with them. There's simply no tolerance for it.

SpartyGR: As long as the current point system is in place, cars that are deemed safe and can meet the minimum speed should be allowed back onto the track. The points are just too valuable to owners, drivers and their teams. It's bad enough that someone may boot your driver into the wall but for NASCAR to punish the booted driver by telling him he can't go back out? Sounds like a great way for those behind in the points to make up some ground, if you get my meaning.

Hundreds of you share Tom Izzo's feelings about the point system -- including me. Unless the point system is restructured, teams will fight to the death to get that car back on the track and salvage some points. Like I said, these days even three points matter.

On another note, enough with the conspiracy theories, already. That crap is tired.

Punisher29: If slower cars are not allowed on the track, the Morgan-McClure No. 4 will surely be missed...

Did somebody turn up the air conditioner?

HaulnSS: I think Kurt Busch should be kicked in the ***** by each driver before each race. Oh, and all the cars he wrecks should be allowed to return to the track and they should be allowed 10 laps to put Busch in the wall.

Thought so. The AC is definitely set on arctic blast.

SpeedsterD: I hate seeing all the banged-up slower cars getting in the way. I think NASCAR should mandate at every race, a minimum speed necessary to compete. Let's just say that you need to run at least within 10 or 12% of the pole qualifying speed.

That way, slower cars no longer just pass the time logging in laps for the sake of points. NASCAR also needs to revamp the points system to no longer "reward" points to teams/drivers who just linger at the rear of the fields. I believe that awarding points to just the top 20 finishing positions would help too.

We've already had that discussion, Speedy Dry. It's pretty simple: if you only pay out points to the top-20 or -30 finishers, the beat-up cars will pack up and head home early.

Otherwise, mangled cars will ride around at half speed -- duct tape flailing in the breeze like Willis McGahee's shattered knee and sheet metal scraping the surface like a snowplow -- until told not to.

And oftentimes they'll be in the way, holding up the leaders and testing the mettle of the victor. But, after all, these are the best drivers in the world, and overcoming adversity in the form of lapped traffic is just part of it.

They weren't kidding when they said patience is a virtue.

Marty Smith is NASCAR.com's senior writer. The opinions expressed are solely of the writers.