Pit Road: A Case Study Of Needless Complexity
"So a season that opened with grave
safety questions will close with more safety questions of a different
sort."
So writes Mike
Mulhern in an editorial within a story about the Dixie 500 at Atlanta and
the sudden crisis level of pit road. Mulhern is a writer who usually cuts to the
chase, and he does so again here:
"NASCAR should make helmets mandatory
immediately. NASCAR should establish a minimum pit road width standard and a
minimum pit box standard for all tracks for next season. NASCAR should paint a
yellow line down the middle of pit road to clearly delineate a ‘no-fly’ lane for
drivers entering and leaving the pits."
Okay, Mike, so what do you really think
NASCAR should do about pit road?
Mulhern later notes how "some tracks
didn’t have a pit wall and every team was at risk every time a driver roared in
for gas and tires." He even notes Nashville’s figure-eight track that was
used for pits during Winston Cup Grand National events.
"The brush back is infamous in this
sport," Mulhern notes. It is of course considered bad form to speak ill of
Dale Earnhardt, but the historical record still notes him as among the more
infamous brush-backers – which occasionally led to humorous poetic justice
moments, such as the 1986 Summer 500 at Pocono, where Earnhardt sideswiped
Richard Petty exiting the pits and Petty knocked him to the Tunnel Turn wall as
a result, similar to an incident between the two at Talladega in 1984. Rusty
Wallace has also had some rather gruesome brush backs, such as when he drilled
Joe Nemechek’s jackman at Texas in 1998 and almost struck several pit crewmen
during practice at Martinsville and got fined for it. Jeff Gordon’s blocking of
Mike Skinner at Charlotte in 1999 is another brush-back moment – maybe Gordon
had that in mind when he commented that Earnhardt taught him a lot.
Hard to believe as it may sound to a
generation of race fans unfamiliar with the sport pre-1991-2, it used to be that
drivers would roar into the pits at full speed, slam on their brakes, and
screech to a stop in their box. Sounds like a recipe for tragedy, right?
Wrong. Such was common at tracks for
decades, and there was little in the way of a problem. But in April 1989 came a
fundamental change – one that has led to the current crisis.
In the 1989 Atlanta 500 Darrell Waltrip
was running in the top five when a yellow came out. Rusty Wallace was the
leader, but when the yellow came the pace car picked up Waltrip as the leader,
costing him almost a lap. It highlighted some scoring problems of the time, and
NASCAR began the practice of closing pit road when the caution came out, to
better keep score of cars on the track.
Before this, teams would routinely dive
into the pits before taking the caution. Others would wait a lap before pitting,
and as a result pit crowding was generally not a serious problem. Occasionally
the entire field would pit at the same time, but such was fairly rare, and pit
accidents were rare.
They did occur, though – in the 1974
Winston 500 rookie Grant Adcox hit a patch of oily water and spun into Gary
Bettenhausen’s Matador, crushing catch-can man Don Miller, now a chief honcho
with Penske Racing. Actions by K&K crewman Buddy Parrott saved Miller’s
life, but he lost a leg nonetheless.
In 1979 rookie Dave Watson suddenly
accelerated through Atlanta’s pit and struck a crewman, killing him.
In the 1986 Diehard 500 Darrell Waltrip
pitted and clipped Rick Wilson, who was exiting the pits; later Earnhardt, his
engine blown, pitted and spun backwards into the pit wall; the hit wasn’t
onerous and no crewmen were involved.
In 1987 two Bill Elliott crewmen were
injured when Elliott was hit in the pits at Riverside.
Such tragedies were fairly rare, but in
1989 with the closing of the pits for yellows that began to change. In the
Diehard 500 Darrell Waltrip raced Davey Allison out of the pits and side slammed
Jimmy Spencer, who got on his tail – literally – for a moment before coming to a
stop.
It was in 1990 that pit crashes became a
huge problem. Stanley Smith was clipped by Jim Sauter at Talladega and slammed
into Tracy Leslie’s car, injuring four crewmen. There were several more pit
crashes, at Martinsville, at Charlotte, and at Rockingham. But it was at Atlanta
that tragedy struck – Ricky Rudd came into the pits too fast, spun, and crashed
into Bill Elliott; crewmen Mike Rich died that night.
Teams demanded complete changes, so NASCAR
implemented a ban on tire changes under yellow, a rule first tried at
Martinsville and Nashville in 1980. The hope was that teams would pit
immediately after a green to get tires; no one bit, though, and with tire
management now the key to racing, teams could no longer race for the win,
instead having to manage tires. NASCAR’s races suffered in competitiveness, so
at Bristol NASCAR mandated a complex change involving odd-even staggering of
stops based on qualifying. Teams could change tires under yellow, and restarts
were double-file for the leaders. With more "odd" cars than
"even" cars pitting, this helped Rusty Wallace make up two laps on two
separate occasions; it also helped breed an extraordinary number of lead changes
– 41. Though the pit rules were complex, the race itself was sensational.
But the complexity of those pit rules made
them doomed, and at North Wilkesboro NASCAR hit upon the presently used package
– a speed limit for cars entering and exiting the pits. Occasionally there were
still some contact in the pits, and the rash of speeding penalties became an
issue as well. Over the years, collisions with pit crewmen began to become an
issue again, and the general crowding – greater and more frequent than before
1989 – was also unsettling.
Already NASCAR has expanded the pit speed
limit zone and crewmen are beginning to wear helmets. There is still some
advocacy of freezing the running order under yellow so pit stops have no real
importance to them. This, though, is too far in the opposite direction.
Why no serious thought has been given to
keeping pit road open at all times is a mystery. Certainly there was little to
no need for speed limits or crew helmets in those times when the pits were never
closed other than for catastrophic pit incidents.
Mulhern works in the other big competitive
issue racing faces when he notes that NASCAR "needs to work even more
closely with the Detroit carmakers to resolve the single-file racing dilemma
that plagues the sport at too many tracks and that leads to such tension on pit road."
It is of course true that a reason for some of these pit crashes is that it is
the only area where any passing can occur. Though the Dixie 500 did see some
spirited dicing all day, the aero push was again a competition killer, and the
lack of a strong draft made closing on cars more difficult than it needs to be.
Can you say, "bring back the roof
spoiler?"