After NASCAR officials observed potentiasl safety issues on pit road during qualifying for the first four races of the 2019 Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season, the stock-car racing sanctioning body has decided to extend its in-race, pit-road speed limits to qualifying sessions. Teams were notified of the new rule via a technical bulletin from NASCAR on Wednesday.
Friday's qualifying session at Auto Club Speedway for Sunday's Auto Club 400, the fifth race of the season, was the first qualifying session with the expanded pit-road, speed-limit rule in place. There were no violations.
“It’s a logical rule change,” Jimmie Johnson said. "It’s just kind of weird timing, in my opinion. We’re packing our bags and getting ready to head to Fontana and we’re five races into the year and rule comes. I’m like what? Why didn’t we start the year like this? Again, it’s a logical rule. I still look forward to speaking with them today and trying to understand if it’s just to keep the cars at a controlled pace where there are men on pit road walking, or are they trying to create something different and keep us from maybe leaving the end of pit road in these big groups together.
"Depending on what their intentions are, I think there are a few ways to look at it. If it’s just to make pit road safer, let’s create a zone and make some visual cones and references up for the drivers and turn those segments on. I totally get it. It’s just going to be silly if you’re at the end of pit road trying to get into a whole and you’re time isn’t going to count, because you went over the speed limit.
"I think the way I’m going to prevent doing that is I‘m going to go down past the last orange line and sit. Well, at Martinsville, you’re sitting on the race track. At different tracks, that line is at a different spot. Understanding the intentions of this rule is going to be beneficial for everybody, and we can adjust it.”
If a driver speeds on pit road on his way out to post a qualifying lap, he will be called back to pit road. An official lap will not be recorded for that driver until after he reports back to pit road.
Pit-road speed limits vary from track to track.
