NASCAR
Major NASCAR Announcements Arise Weeks Before Season Opener
NASCAR Will Disqualify A Failed Race Winner
Though the 2019 NASCAR season kicks off this coming weekend, major announcements are still forthcoming. One of the biggest announcements is the change for penalized race winners. In 2018, a post-race penalty meant a loss of points and a hefty fine for the driver and team. Announced earlier this week, that is no longer the case.
This season, instead of the team who fails inspection taking home the trophy and prize money, the 2nd place driver will be named winner. Of course, the 2nd place team must also pass inspection. However, under NASCAR’s current Playoff format, if you win you’re in. This means that a driver who finishes 2nd may end up the winner. To add to this new rule, NASCAR will be doing a more thorough breakdown of the car post race. This change will help NASCAR declare a winner shortly after the race, instead of a few days later.
NASCAR has not disqualified a Cup Series race winner since 1960, signifying the severity of this rules change. Had this policy been in place for 2018, Kevin Harvick would have lost his wins at Las Vegas as well as Texas.
Gen 7 Car Planned for 2021
Another major announcement made public by NASCAR is their progress with the Gen 7 race car. Currently, NASCAR runs the “Gen 6,” the car now seen on track every weekend. The Gen 6 racecar made it’s debut in 2013, and has faced fan criticism ever since. NASCAR has announced it will be debuting a new car. This comes after numerous package changes and what most fans would say failed attempts. The official release of the new car is currently the 2021 Daytona 500. Specific focuses and advancements for the Gen 7 are currently unknown.
“I think it’s important to note that the reason we headed in this direction with the 2019 rules package was really to line us up for where we wanted to go in the future from a racing standpoint, both on track from a car’s look and feel and then under the hood from an engine perspective,” NASCAR Executive Vice President Steve O’Donnell told NASCAR.com.
Long Planning Stages for Gen 7 Car
“So what we’ve done is spent the better part of a year putting together a Gen-7 model,” said O’Donnell. “We’re in process now of going out and talking to OEMs, talking in the industry and getting their feedback on what they like and what they may want to see tweaked, but the goal for us is to roll this out fairly quickly with an accelerated timeline to 2021, but again this rules package — particularly the engine horsepower — allows us to have some discussion around a more relevant engine that can be around the 2021 package.”
Numerous big changes are on the immediate horizon for NASCAR. We have to hope that these leave a positive effect on the track. This season has proven to already be a major step for NASCAR and it’s racecar. Only time will tell if that’s a step in the right direction. On-track action kicks off this Sunday at Daytona, with pole qualifying for The Great American race, as well as The Clash.
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Photo credit to Bill Church via Flickr.
