NASCAR Announces Officiating Revisions after Review of Richmond Race

NASCAR Announces Officiating Revisions Following Week-Long Review of Race at Richmond International Raceway 

2012-NASCARLogoNASCAR has announced a set of officiating revisions to further reinforce its in-race rules and regulations following a week-long review of events that transpired during last Saturday’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Richmond International Raceway.

NASCAR officials met with drivers, owners and crew chiefs this afternoon at Chicagoland Speedway to address these revisions that will take effect beginning with Sunday’s opening race of the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. The revisions focus on assisting the competitors to understand what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in NASCAR’s sole determination when it comes to officiating teams’ racing during an event. NASCAR will issue a technical bulletin to the teams later this afternoon that outlines these revisions.

“Today’s technical bulletin addresses the subject of team(s) artificially altering the outcome of a race and the level of reaction that this will receive from NASCAR,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President of Competition. “We reinforced this issue to the teams in our meeting earlier today and conveyed what is considered unacceptable in our officiating of the event.”

Initial officiating revisions that were announced and will take effect Sunday are:

  • Spotters only on spotters’ stand (one per team)
  • Spotters’ stand limits: Two analog radios, scanners, Fan Views
  • Video camera will be installed on spotters’ stand

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

NASCAR Penalizes Michael Waltrip Racing after Incident at Richmond

 NASCAR has issued penalties to Michael Waltrip Racing following the sanctioning body’s review of Saturday’s race at Richmond International Raceway.

NASCARlogoMWR was found to have violated Section 12-4 (Actions detrimental to stock car racing). As a result, MWR’s three teams in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (No. 15, 55, 56) have been penalized with the loss of 50 championship driver and 50 championship owner points, respectively.

These point penalties are assessed following the season’s 26th regular season race and not after the seeding for the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. Therefore, the point total for the No. 56 car driven by Martin Truex Jr. is reduced to 691, putting him in 17th position and eliminating him from the second Wild Card berth for the Chase field. Ryan Newman, driver of the No. 39 car, now moves up into the Chase as the second Wild Card participant.

NASCAR has also fined the MWR organization $300,000 and indefinitely suspended Ty Norris, MWR Executive Vice President/General Manager and spotter for the No. 55 car, for violating Section 12-4. The three crew chiefs – Brian Pattie (No. 15), Scott Miller (No. 55) and Chad Johnston (No. 56) – have all been placed on NASCAR probation until Dec. 31.

“Based upon our review of Saturday night’s race at Richmond, it is our determination that the MWR organization attempted to manipulate the outcome of the race,” said Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition. “As the sport’s sanctioning body, it is our responsibility to ensure there is a fair and level playing field for all of our competitors and this action today reflects our commitment to that.”

 

Enhanced by Zemanta

NASCAR Announces Initiative to Transform Competition and Fan Experience

(L-R) Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President, CompetitionGene Stefanyshyn, NASCAR Vice President, Innovation and Racing DevelopmentSteve O'Donnell, NASCAR Senior Vice President, Racing Operations speak to the media at NASCAR Research & Development Center on July 15, 2013  Photo - Street Lecka/Getty Images

(L-R) Robin Pemberton, NASCAR Vice President, CompetitionGene Stefanyshyn, NASCAR Vice President, Innovation and Racing DevelopmentSteve O’Donnell, NASCAR Senior Vice President, Racing Operations speak to the media at NASCAR Research & Development Center on July 15, 2013
Photo – Street Lecka/Getty Images

Fans are you ready for the future of NASCAR? NASCAR executives are preparing to take fans and competition to the next level.

NASCAR is recognized as a sports leader in bringing fans closer to the experience both at the track and to those watching from home. And today NASCAR reinforced their goal of constantly improving their core product by announcing their launch of a wide-ranging initiative to transform its Competition and in turn, enhance the fan experience.

This initiative began in 2012 with direction from NASCAR CEO, Brian France, as a careful evaluation of Competition, with a world-class consulting firm, who has worked with about every major sport in America and globally, McKinsey & Company. Also brought on for this project is automotive executive Brent Dewar.

“…this really started back in May or June of last year with Brian asking NASCAR to really lead in the technology and innovation space,” said Steve O’Donnell. “So we started out, a group of us, going out to a number of the leaders in the technology space from a company standpoint.  We met with a lot of the leading universities in the U.S., as well, and gathered some data as to what are some of the new emerging technologies, what could we be at NASCAR’s research and development center, and from there really applied that to what we have in place today and how we needed to change or evolve to become worldwide leaders in the innovation space. That led us obviously to the guy on my right with the hiring of Gene Stefanyshyn and initiatives that we’re looking at today.”

A steering committed led by Mike Helton, Steve O’Donnell, Gene Stefanyshyn, Robin Pemberton and Steve Phelps created and guided four internal ‘working teams’ to create a blueprint accomplishing their goal of transforming Competition in four key areas of Rules, Governance, Deterrence/Penalties and Officiating/Inspection.

There have been two primary goals from the outset – continue to modernize Competition by injecting science and technology into all of their operations – as Brian France has repeatedly declared – and position NASCAR as a leader in the sports and entertainment marketplace of the future Continue reading

Gene Stefanyshyn Selected to Lead NASCAR’s Innovation and Racing Development

NASCARlogoVeteran Automotive Executive Brings Global Experience in Engineering Strategy, Product Development and Finance

NASCAR announced April 25, 2013 that Eugene (Gene) Stefanyshyn has been named Vice President, Innovation and Racing Development to drive continual improvements in racing performance. He will be based at NASCAR’s Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C.

In this role, Stefanyshyn will lead and shape NASCAR’s future approach to Competition by utilizing and developing innovations that advance the racing product and fan experience. Additionally, he will work in close collaboration with other NASCAR departments and industry stakeholders to develop a leading edge culture for NASCAR surrounding engineering and technology. Continue reading

NASCAR Announces New Sprint Cup Road-Course Qualifying Procedure

NASCARlogoNew Group-Based Format To Bolster Excitement For Sonoma, Watkins Glen

NASCAR announced today that the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series will implement the group-based road course qualifying procedure used in NASCAR Nationwide and NASCAR Touring Series competition during its road-course events at Sonoma Raceway and Watkins Glen International. Under the new procedure, cars will qualify in groups instead of the traditional single-car qualifying runs held on oval race tracks.  Continue reading