NASCAR tweaks rules on tires, pit road equipment

NASCAR issued a rules bulletin Wednesday with noteworthy changes regarding tires and equipment allowed on pit road.

Beginning with the Coca-Cola 600 next weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, teams will no longer be required to start the race on their qualifying tires. And all teams will now be allotted four sets of tires for practice and qualifying. The exception will be at superspeedways (Daytona, Talladega) where it will be three sets.

Additionally, on enhanced weekends where the schedule is not the traditional three days, teams will be able to carry over the tires they qualified on to the race. For those who do not put qualifying laps on their tires, they will have to carry over a scuffed set of tires from practice.

NASCAR has been experiencing issues this season with drivers being able to start a race on sticker tires if they did not pass pre-qualifying inspection and make a lap. It created an advantage for those drivers over those who had put laps on their tires during qualifying.

The other amendment to the rule book was that teams must use “traditional battery-powered equipment” when repairing cars on pit road. Any other equipment can only be used at the discretion of the series managing director.

At Talladega Superspeedway last month, Furniture Row Racing grabbed attention for the large saw they pulled out to repair Martin Truex Jr.’s car after a crash. Under this rule, that would no longer be allowed.

Truex's crew chief, Cole Pearn, reacted on Twitter to today’s bulletin:

https://twitter.com/colepearn/status/996845625177128960/photo/1