Time for a change NASCAR!!
I'm no Nascar fan but it's time to change up the points chase format.....five years with new format and five years Jimmie Johnson winning...has anyone thought the last 10 tracks my be some of his better tracks? Need to add Bristol to the points chase.
come on these clowns can't evevn get out of the pits lmao
HOMESTEAD, Fla. -- Ryan Newman qualified 23rd for the Ford 400, but he won't know what getting to run in the first 20 minutes of Friday's only Sprint Cup practice would mean until race day, because thanks to an apparent miscommunication, Newman broke the transmission in his Stewart-Haas Racing Chevrolet while still in the garage and missed almost the first quarter of practice.
The incident occurred when about half a dozen cars, including Newman's, were misdirected to the wrong gate to get from the Sprint Cup garage to pit road. Newman declined to discuss the issue, but his crew chief, Tony Gibson, explained.
Ford 400
Lineup
Pos. Driver Make 1. Kasey Kahne Toyota 2. Carl Edwards Ford 3. Jamie McMurray Chevrolet 4. Bill Elliott Ford 5. A.J. Allmendinger Ford Complete Lineup
"When the race track sends everybody out, normally that gate [at the start/finish end of the garage] is open," Gibson said. "Well, they had it blocked, so they were shipping everybody down between the garages [to a gate further up the back of pit road], where they were lined up. But then they locked that gate and made us go back [through the garage to the original gate]."
Greg Biffle explained there were no NASCAR officials at the usual gate when he got there, and a track security guard waved him up to the other gate, where he lined up behind Jamie McMurray, Kevin Harvick and in front of Newman.
A NASCAR official then let McMurray onto pit road but stopped Harvick. Biffle drove around Harvick and did a "three-point turn" to make the right-hand shift into the opening under the pit suites to get back into the garage -- and back in line for practice. Harvick then put his car into reverse and abruptly backed up, almost hitting Newman, who had started to pull up behind him.
"Trying to get everybody to come around and through that hole wasn't going to happen," Gibson said. "Guys were backing-up into other guys, so we put it in reverse to back-up in a hurry to keep Harvick from hitting us and it broke the transmission. We don't use reverse a lot and it's a lot thinner than our primary gears."
Newman immediately took his car to its garage stall, where the crew spent about the first 20 minutes of practice changing the transmission. However, the lower qualifying position aside, Newman will not be penalized for the transmission change -- which, if it occurred at the wrong point of the weekend, would have sent his car to the rear for the start.
"NASCAR was good about it, [Sprint Cup director John] Darby and them, and they let us change it without a penalty," Gibson said. "Darby said it wouldn't have been a penalty because it was before practice, but he said under the circumstances it was their fault -- not NASCAR but the race track kind of screwed up -- so NASCAR was nice enough to work with us."
But they couldn't get the lost practice time back.
"Missing that 20 minutes hurt," Gibson said. "Because we try to spend our first half-hour in race trim and then switch over, so it just threw us out of whack for a little
nascar isnt a race its a business!
everyone of them are in the business of making money,,, from the top to the bottom,,,and because they wont put real racing on tv we watch it ,,,,thats the jest of it,,,,the goofey think is that some of those who race nascar think they it is them thats really good and that the whole thing isnt manipulated thru fines, penalties, yellow flags for imaginary stuff on the track and probably just for the hell of it,,,,throw in a couple ingnorant announcers like the walthrip brothers and lary the mouth and you have a 3rd rate comedy hour,,,,it used to be a neat thing to watch before it became another iroc series .... but what can ya do,,, either watch or not watch,, heres a tip,, its better with the sound off and the pic blurred just a tad,,,,,