'Precise' pit road system will take some getting used to
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NASCAR Sprint Cup Series crew chiefs are anticipating a rise in the number of pit road infractions when the 2015 season gets underway later this month, but say they expect those totals to decrease as teams become more comfortable with the new technology used to police pit road.
Until this year, officials located on pit road monitored stops. Now those activities will be captured on video and streamed to a central location where eight officials will review each stop and rule on possible infractions.
"There's going to be a fair share of penalties, just because the system is so much more precise," said Jason Ratcliff, crew chief for the No. 20 team of Joe Gibbs Racing driver Matt Kenseth. "I think teams are going to be cutting it really close, closer than they were before in trying to find where the edge is within the new officiating system.
"But it's going to be spot-on. When it says you're wrong, you're wrong."
Violations such as excessive speed on pit road and pulling up to pit (passing a vehicle on the inside) will continue to be handled by officials in the scoring tower. Infractions such as too many crewmembers in contact with the pit service area, crewmembers over the wall too soon and pitting outside the assigned pit box will be policed using the new video system technology.
NASCAR officials met with pit crew coaches and crew chiefs during the offseason to help familiarize them with the changes. Part of the process included detailing which infractions were the most common from the previous year.
Pitting before pit road is open (394 violations) and too fast on pit road (133 violations) occurred the most often. Because those will continue to be monitored by officials in the control tower, those numbers aren't expected to increase dramatically
One of the biggest concerns for teams is the penalty for crewmembers over the wall too soon. Last season, the infraction was called only 23 times, in part because it's a judgment call made by officials who often don't have the best view of exactly where a car is located when crewmen cross the pit wall.
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Crewmen are not allowed to cross the pit wall until their driver is within two pit boxes of his pit stall. The driver whose team violates the rule must serve a pass-thru penalty (when the infraction occurs under green-flag conditions) or restart at the tail end of the field (when it takes place under yellow).
According to results obtained while testing the new system during the final 10 races of 2014, the numbers for that particular violation would have more than tripled.
"That's a concern for a lot of guys," said Todd Gordon, crew chief for No. 22 Team Penske driver Joey Logano. "The reason we didn't have a lot of calls for off the wall too soon (before) is because for an official to look back 60 feet and make a call on whether the car is six inches short of the line, a foot short or on the line, it's so hard for him to do that they would never make it. So a guy could leave a little bit early.
"But that's the same vision that our crewmembers have to have to know when that car gets to that line. The computers (video) will see that a lot better than the jackman will."
And because the jackman is the first crewman over the wall, Gordon said the onus would be on him to make sure he times his departure just right.
"He's the first guy the car gets to," he said. "The rear guys come behind the car so they're waiting for the car to get by; he's the first guy in line. Those guys have worked pretty hard in how to be explosive off the wall and speed up their time from the wall to outside the car. That's a piece that's probably become more important with this new enforcement."
Faster pit stops can improve a driver's track position, and teams are always searching for ways to get their driver on and off pit road in the least amount of time. Improvements in equipment and more athletic crewmen have sped up the pace tremendously in recent years to the point where a 14-second stop is now considered average.
"We know how important pit road is to results on the race track," said Paul Wolfe, crew chief for the No. 2 team of Team Penske driver Brad Keselowski. "We like to pass cars on pit road if we can, so knowing that we're going to have equal rules to the guy next to us, that's exciting for a competitor to know that if we work hard and do our part that we can be rewarded for it."
Rodney Childers, who heads up the No. 4 Stewart-Haas Racing team of driver Kevin Harvick, said he believes having veteran personnel going over the wall will make a difference.
"I think having experienced guys that have been on pit road a long time, that probably helps you out because they're more relaxed, more comfortable and feel like they can jump off the wall later and still make up for it," he said.
One thing the new system likely won't deter is the dispute that often ensues between crew chiefs and officials when a violation is called.
"I think the argument is still going to be there," Ratcliff said. "You know how that is.
"We're still going to want to see it firsthand. … I think as we see where we made the mistakes and see how it's going to work and how the system is operating differently than it has in the past, we'll get a good feel for it and be able to adjust accordingly."