Suspended crew chiefs banned from tracks

[tidwell]

NASCAR officials announced on Thursday at Daytona that they will enforce control over crew chiefs and team members serving suspensions, who will no longer be admitted on track property during races.

"We want to take away the perception that they're circumventing the penalty, that the penalty doesn't mean anything because they're still on site. With people thinking that this is a circumvention of the penalty, the next step is, 'What do you do about it?' "

In the past, other suspended crew chiefs used to watch the race from the grandstands and have telephone or even radio contact with their teams, but NASCAR's new policy will not allow that anymore.

"The old days are gone," Hunter added. "Everybody likes to write all these stories about how it's part of NASCAR to get around the rules and all that sort of thing. There's plenty of areas for guys to still be innovative and creative without breaking the rules."

Basically, NASCAR was outsmarted again and didn't like it. :birgits_giggle:

autosport.com - NASCAR News: Suspended chiefs banned from tracks

 

[USAF_Vol]

IMO, Crew Cheifs should have absolutely no contact whatsoever with the team if suspended. No phone, text or third party contact. What is the point if they are able to make calls about the car over a phone/text if they are suspended?

 

[kkep48]

well there aren't any rules about that, they should have made a rule that said you're not allowed on speedway property when suspended. All the rule states now is that anything it takes to use a NASCAR license at the track, the crew chief can't do (be in the garage, etc.). You can't stop people from buying tickets to the race and watching from the grandstand, which is what they did last week. If the teams want to buy the ticket then they have a right to.

 

[USAF_Vol]

Absolutely. They should rewrite the rules to state that.

 

[doozer]

like there still isn't ways around this.

 

[MG1968]

Thanks to Trackpass, a crew chief with a laptop computer could sit in an internet cafe 1000 miles from the race track and still give instructions to the crew. I don't really see any way in which NASCAR can completely prevent a suspended crew chief from being involved.

well, there is one way, but it involves incarceration.