Backstrech pitting.

[NC HillBilly]

I'm sure some of the older posters will remember the days when you had to put a car on the frontstrech pits to have a shot at winning. I can't remember who it was but I recall watching a race as a kid (early 90s) where a driver either won or came very close to winning while pitting from the backstrech. I'm hoping someone here might be able to jog my memory because I'd like to go back and watch it. I think it may have been a Darlington race but I can't remember which car/team it was for the life of me.

Also, how do you guys feel about the change over to the new way of having one long pit road? Anything you miss about the old system of two pits? Any rule changes you think they could have implemented to make things more fair without re-designing all those pit roads? Any odd pit roads from back in the day you guys remember?

I recall one race where there wasn't a wall between the pitroad and in-field. They had the haulers backed right up to the pit boxes. Crazy to think that was even allowed at one point. I can remember some tracks having pitroads right down the middle of the in-field with pit boxes on both sides of pit road. There was also the island at Sears Point that must have been horrible to deal with.

Just watching old footage of pit roads from the 80s is just insane when you see all the people that used to work down there.

 

[Charlie Spencer]

I don’t miss back stretch pit roads in the least.

 

[Madman88]

I'm sure some of the older posters will remember the days when you had to put a car on the frontstrech pits to have a shot at winning. I can't remember who it was but I recall watching a race as a kid (early 90s) where a driver either won or came very close to winning while pitting from the backstrech. I'm hoping someone here might be able to jog my memory because I'd like to go back and watch it. I think it may have been a Darlington race but I can't remember which car/team it was for the life of me.

Also, how do you guys feel about the change over to the new way of having one long pit road? Anything you miss about the old system of two pits? Any rule changes you think they could have implemented to make things more fair without re-designing all those pit roads? Any odd pit roads from back in the day you guys remember?

I recall one race where there wasn't a wall between the pitroad and in-field. They had the haulers backed right up to the pit boxes. Crazy to think that was even allowed at one point. I can remember some tracks having pitroads right down the middle of the in-field with pit boxes on both sides of pit road. There was also the island at Sears Point that must have been horrible to deal with.

Just watching old footage of pit roads from the 80s is just insane when you see all the people that used to work down there.

This was a way to make qualifying really mean something to the mid field teams. Can you imagine the graphics and trackers they would have going on the broadcast now estimating where on the front or the backstretch a driver would be pitting given his current lap time in qualifying.

I wish this would come back. It was awesome watching the races at Bristol and other tracks with this, most years someone pitting on the backstretch would have a great car in the race and it was always interesting to see how the pitting sequenced out when they came around the backstretch and that group of cars came out. Made that great run they had seem like a heroic effort after penalizing themselves with a poor qualifying run.

It's sometimes more interesting when everything isn't the same for everyone else. All these things add up to why races are seem to be boring now.
'

 

[Jorge De Guzman]

Old school Bristol had this right?

 

[Madman88]

Old school Bristol had this right?

Right or Not is not how I would describe it, I would say it was another nuance that added to the equation that made it fun to watch.

some will argue it wasn't pure racing, some will come up with some outlandish crap, I thought it was a bummer when a driver I was routing for was stuck back there, but it added to the overall event. Made the emotions come out that much more which is what Bristol has lost in my opinion. You don't hear the Colosseum roar and you don't hear drivers tell you they are pissed off on Monday morning as soon as they realize Bristol is that weekend. The emotion made that event what it was in the past, and all the little things that could go wrong and how hard it was to get the full weekend eight enough to win it was made it awesome.