RELATED: NASCAR doubles restart zone | Drivers weigh in on restart change
DOVER, Del. – NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers appear to be pleased with NASCAR’s decision to lengthen the restart zone used at tracks, but say that the move won’t completely erase the gamesmanship that plays out when the field prepares to take the green flag.
The sanctioning body announced earlier this week that the restart zone for this weekend’s AAA 400 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Dover International Speedway had been expanded from 70 feet to 140 feet.
Likewise, the zones at upcoming events in this year’s Chase for the Sprint Cup would also be expanded, with the actual length of the zone to be determined by the size of the track.
Restart zones, located prior to the start/finish line, indicate where the race leader, or control car, is allowed to accelerate when the race is either beginning or coming out of a caution period.
Issues with drivers timing their starts to gain an advantage on the leader have led to complaints from competitors and explanations of how restarts are policed as well as warnings to toe the line during drivers’ meetings.
Beginning with the first Chase race, at Chicagoland Speedway, NASCAR stationed an official inside the track near the restart zone, and added a high definition camera to provide additional information should the need arise.
At Chicagoland, Jeff Gordon appeared to jump the restart while starting second alongside Kyle Busch. NASCAR reviewed the restart and eventually ruled that no infraction took place.
RELATED: What NASCAR said after the Chicagoland restart was reviewed
Last week at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, Brad Keselowski was black-flagged for jumping the restart, although he did not complete a pass of race leader Greg Biffle during the restart.
“I absolutely love it,” Gordon, a four-time series champion, said Friday at Dover. “I think it’s a great move.”
Gordon’s been around longer than any current full-time driver, and has seen the way NASCAR handles restarts evolve from single-file to double-file, from not allowing the leader to be passed before the start/finish line to making that line a non-factor on restarts. The use of restart zones and how they have been policed, while a good idea, was “too extreme,” according to the Hendrick Motorsports driver.
“It used to be a mark on the wall and it was go in the vicinity of this mark and this area, but really the way the rules were written you could kind of go all the way to the start/finish line,” he said. “People pushed the limits on that and forced NASCAR to make this box that we currently have.
“The box was always too small. It just makes the whole front row very vulnerable and not just the second-place car, but the leader as well. It has needed to be bigger. My only question is did they go big enough?”
Gordon said he had his team’s engineers do a study of the restart zones, and discovered that “the average time that you are in that box and had time to react to a restart was barely more than one second.
“It may look like it’s fairly big out there, (but) it is not,” he said. “When you have one second to react in that area everyone can just anticipate what is going on but the people in the front row.”
The fact that a driver is the leader, said Joe Gibbs Racing‘s Kyle Busch, should provide him with some advantage, however slight it might be.
“This business isn’t easy,” Busch said. “… I think the biggest thing is just NASCAR making sure that they watch the roll – the people rolling up on other people. And … I feel as though the second-place guy can’t beat the leader to the first (restart zone) mark, the end of the restart zone.
“It doesn’t matter about the start-finish line. It’s the restart zone I feel like the leader should always be ahead.”
While extending the zone will give officials a bigger window in which to determine if a driver has jumped a restart, the change won’t end drivers’ attempts to push the envelope.
But by finally ruling against a driver on a restart – something officials had not done recently – teams now know the possibility of the call coming down exists.
“There’s going to be plenty of gamesmanship still, and I think NASCAR has also set the precedent with what they did last week and enforcing the rule,” Joey Logano, Keselowski’s teammate at Team Penske, said. “That’s something they need to continue doing.
“It’s not just having it happen one time and … scare us, and then don’t do anything about it for the next three weeks.
“They finally put their foot down last week on what we can and can’t do, and that rule needs to be consistent and make sure that when they see something they make the same call and be consistent with that.”