Hamlin pleased by NASCAR's tire change rule tweaks
Image by Nigel Kinrade/LAT
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By:
Kelly Crandall | 14 hours ago
Denny Hamlin said he’s “really happy” with NASCAR getting back to the basics by eliminating the arm’s length requirement for uncontrolled tires.
NASCAR officials
announced the change on Wednesday. It had been a hotly debated rule that often led to multiple penalties on race weekends — and one Hamlin and his team met with officials about earlier this month to voice concerns about.
“I think they knew with this whole arm’s length rule they were putting themselves in a box, and it was a very subjective box,” Hamlin told RACER during a round of media calls Friday morning to promote his FedEx paint scheme for Watkins Glen. “It had to do with who makes the call and what’s the opinion of that person who is making the call. It is not a black and white, here’s the line, you’re over the line. It was an opinion, judgment call. And they did not want to be in that box.
More NASCAR!
“Every one of our issues has been uncontrolled tires, to speak in terms of penalties, which those are the real killers,” he said. “One second, two second slow (pit) stops, those aren’t fun, but they don’t absolutely cripple you the way a penalty does when you have to come back down pit road. So as far as that stuff goes, I think a couple of the uncontrolled tire calls were really close ones and certainly under the new letter of the law would go away, if not all of them.
So from that point of view, I think all the crew chiefs will rest a little bit easier as our car comes down pit road knowing it won’t be such a tight judgment call determining whether or not a tire gets away, because often times those are the penalties we’re talking about.
“As far as our pit crew speed, they have really been improving a lot over the last several races. I’m really excited about that. The group is working really hard, they gel really well together, so I actually look for good things to come out of them.”
(As long as NASCAR doesn't screw you over with time penalties like the sports car guys.)
https://www.tamparacing.com/forums/p...ml#post9422952
Denny Hamlin,
Penalty,
Tire Changes,
NASCAR