NASCAR needs better road penalties

SpeedPagan

SpeedPagan

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With NASCAR's race control no doubt receiving up to date data from the 38 cars on the field, there's no real reason for the "full stop or pass through" penalty that NASCAR has implemented for road courses. Of course this only seems to be a problem on the Charlotte Roval but if the Roval is going to be the last race in the Round of 12, then the penalty should be scrutinized, especially when two playoffs drivers were eliminated because they had to serve this penalty through no fault of their own.

What most road racing series do (Formula 1 included) is they look at the data and then determined if the car gained time by missing the chicane or any part of the track or did they lose time? If they gained time, then they're given a slow down where as they have to drive slower to give the time back and that has to be done within a time frame or else they'll serve another penalty for not slowing down. This IMHO is a fairer system because it looks at the actual data and see whether or not a penalty is warranted.

IMHO, Bubba Wallace didn't deserve his "full stop" penalty for being punted out of the front stretch chicane, but since nuances seem to be lost on NASCAR officials, he had to serve one anyways and that may have cost him the chance to advance to the Round of 8. I know there was another driver who also had to serve this bull**** penalty for also being punted out of a chicane, their name isn't coming to me.

Point being, the road course penalties need to be updated to a more fair system that takes circumstances and data from the cars into consideration.
 
NASCAR revels in 19th century race race control procedures unless there is something in it for THEM. Case in point is the way pit road speeding is calculated and reverting back to the last timing line when the caution comes out.
 
Formerjackman said:
NASCAR revels in 19th century race race control procedures unless there is something in it for THEM. Case in point is the way pit road speeding is calculated and reverting back to the last timing line when the caution comes out.
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I will say, I do love the cat and mouse game the team plays with the pit lane loops. If you're going to strictly enforce pit lane speed with GPS tracking or whatever, might as well put in a pit limiter button in the car.
 
SpeedPagan said:
I will say, I do love the cat and mouse game the team plays with the pit lane loops. If you're going to strictly enforce pit lane speed with GPS tracking or whatever, might as well put in a pit limiter button in the car.
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NO, because that further dumbs down the skill level required to to compete successfully. This sport at the highest levels is SUPPOSED to be hard.
 
I prefer the required stop for all missed chicanes. It keeps the enforcement from being subjective.
 
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I'm just interested in getting the call correct. I don't give a damn how much trouble it is for somebody to figure it out. If you can't figure out who's at fault, then no penalty at all. Better to error on the side of NOT ruining someone's race. This is pretty much the IMSA procedure on avoidable contact, and it seems to work pretty darn well.
 
Yep, it seemed like overkill to me. I guess I understand the desire to keep things objective, but in this case a driver was clearly spun off track and already lost multiple positions from being so. It’s pretty easy to determine whether or not someone gained an advantage by missing the chicane and this one would be the easiest determination of all.
 
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