NASCAR Cup Sequence driver William Byron after successful the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix
Michael C. Johnson-USA TODAY Sports activities
Sunday’s EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix at Austin, TX’s Circuit of the Americas was pretty uneventful, with William Byron main 42 of 68 laps as he cruised to his second win of the 2024 NASCAR Cup Sequence season.
Which means the NASCAR world shall be looking out elsewhere for speaking factors within the coming days and one of many greatest must be COTA’s monitor limits rule that doomed quite a lot of drivers over the course of the weekend.
On account of complaints from final 12 months, drivers and groups have been informed this weekend that any driver whose complete car ventured exterior of the rumble strips between turns three and six, the “esses” a part of the monitor, can be assessed a pass-thru penalty on pit-road, price roughly 30 seconds.
Each of Saturday’s races, within the Craftsman Truck Sequence and Xfinity Sequence, have been marred by such penalties with essentially the most notable coming with Shane van Gisbergen on the ultimate lap of the Xfinity race. After crossing the end line in second, he was demoted to a Twenty seventh-place end.
Sunday’s Cup race did not see fairly the identical quantity of penalties, however had maybe essentially the most egregious one of many weekend when Chase Elliott needed to drive off target to save lots of his automotive and was nonetheless penalized, regardless of really losing ground in doing so.
Loads of voices across the NASCAR neighborhood aired their displeasure with the rule, most notably Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The largest concern with the rule is that it was arbitrarily put in place just for a choose few activates the race monitor, whereas drivers have been allowed to chop corners or use the runoff space round the remainder of the circuit. Moreover, the pass-thru penalty was far too harsh for one thing that solely gained drivers a break up second of time on the monitor or in Elliott’s case, none in any respect.
Certainly one of NASCAR’s greatest calling playing cards traditionally is that drivers will not be over-officiated the best way they’re in racing sequence reminiscent of System One and IndyCar. This rule was a nasty look and hopefully will probably be executed away with subsequent time the sequence involves Austin.
