A RAHAL RULE FOR NASCAR?

Two items bring back to the fore the
seemingly endless debate over testing in NASCAR. First, there was the
implementation of what should be known as the Rahal Rule. Named for the
presumably soon-to-be-official chairman of CART, Bobby Rahal, this rule for CART
eliminates testing during the season, with 24 test days per team during the
winter months. I recently talked at some length about this to a fellow fan who
works with a company involved in racing, and he was quite supportive of this new
rule.

The Rahal Rule is mentioned in the other
item I refer to – a pre-Bristol PitNow piece on testing and the expansion of the
Winston Cup schedule. NASCAR is looking at building a superspeedway in the
Denver area, and "yet another track on the schedule would squeeze crews
even more. Team owners are gearing up special testing teams for next season and
there is talk of NASCAR possibly expanding its limits on testing……Over the
past two years testing between races has become a major issue, particularly
among the crewmen….."

A lengthy look at NASCAR’s attempts to
restrict testing is necessary to appreciate the mess that has been created in
the last ten years. In 1989 Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, and a few other teams
ran as many as 30 test sessions during the season. NASCAR then stepped in and in
1990 limited teams to seven tests during the season after the Atlanta 500, with
the period from mid-November to mid-March being open season for testing. This
rule stayed in effect for four seasons, but after 1993 NASCAR extended the
seven-test-limit to cover the whole season, with a total ban on testing for
mid-November until January 2nd. The wildcard of that year was Hoosier Tire’s involvement,
which allowed Geoff Bodine to test 30 times that year and thus made his team
almost unstoppable. When Hoosier Tire left, the wildcards were eliminated, and
then the seven-test rule’s true effect took form – now multi-car teams, at a
disadvantage during the previous period when testing was less restricted, became
stronger, and by 1997 single car teams were all but extinct, crowded out by the
extra tests allowed to a multi-car team.

The folly of the testing rule became
manifest with the 1997 development of the Ford Taurus, a project so late in
starting that Ford teams needed to test the car during the November-December
test ban; when NASCAR allowed such testing it gave Ford teams a head start on
1998 that helped them win 15 races and to frequently all but monopolize top-ten
finishing rundowns.

That the proliferation of multi-car teams
was the result of restricted testing was all but admitted when in 1999 NASCAR
briefly considered rescinding testing restrictions altogether.

Nowadays, according to PitNow, "teams
routinely test 25 times a season, getting around NASCAR’s seven test limit at
Winston Cup tracks by hauling to places like Kentucky Speedway, Lakeland, FL,
Greenville-Pickens, and Gateway." Also, it is likely that manufacturer test
tracks and Goodyear’s facility in San Angelo, TX, will be getting massive usage
by teams this coming off season.

Bruton Smith has called for elimination of
testing and using Fridays at racetracks as open practice sessions. However,
according to Jack Roush and Penske South’s John Erickson, such a rule would
force teams to build their own test tracks, much as Rick Hendrick and Roger
Penske are presently building their own wind tunnels. Says Roush pointedly,
"What would you be trying to do by stopping testing? Eliminating testing
won’t make the racing safer (or) the cars safer…..drivers would be in more
disarray and you’d have more problems with cars……just to benchmark things
you need to test." Roush scoffs at the issue of crew burnout, the primary
motive for greater testing limits, pointing out that "it’s the nature of
our business to need to be able to prepare our cars to go to the
racetrack…." One should also point out that crew burnout is a team issue,
not a NASCAR issue, and that it was not an issue when teams tested 30 times a
year.

Other points to consider include the
haves-have nots gap. By limiting testing, NASCAR created the multi-car monster
(that it does not enforce its present two-team-limit for team owners likewise
has contributed) and killed single car and owner-driver teams; owner-crew chief
and owner-engine builder outfits like Yates, Petty, Petree, etc. are also being
pushed further behind. The seven-test limit per car makes no sense in any event
– why should a two-car team like Petty Enterprises or Andy Petree Racing or
SABCO/Ganassi have only 14 tests each where a racing "factory"
(Darrell Waltrip’s description) like Hendrick Motorsports can have 21 and Roush
Racing can have 35? And why should not single car teams have as many tests as
multi-car teams? And given the precedent set by letting Ford teams test during
the 1997 test ban before the 1998 season, why should teams that need to test not
be allowed to do so during the winter test ban?

Some might point out that multi-team
alliances such as RAD Racing and Dodge’s one-team-fielding-ten-cars strategy
give certain teams even more – a combined 42 tests from which RCR, DEI, and APR
can draw, 70 tests and Lou Patane’s open technology book from which the Pettys,
Evernham, Davis, Melling, Ganassi, and the Keselowskis (rumored to soon be
coming to Winston Cup) can draw. One should keep in mind, though, that such
alliances are just that – alliances of autonomous individual race teams. It is
certainly true that such deals help their individual teams – Dodge’s approach is
especially effective as seen with frequent Mopar monopolies on top-ten finishing
rundowns in the Craftsman Trucks – and in the final analysis more such alliances
would help solve a lot of teams’ problems – I look for more alliances to be
formed in the near-future, combining the info-sharing of multi-car teams yet
still allowing an individual team’s autonomy.

Even so, a certain amount of
information-gathering away from a multi-car team or alliance is still necessary,
and any rule on testing needs to keep this in mind. The present test gap also
needs to be closed – NASCAR needs to not only enforce its two-team rule, it
needs to count a team’s test dates into the entirety of a team’s fleet – if the
testing limit is seven, that number should apply to a team’s entire fleet, be it
a two-car team, three-car team, etc. A handicapping system is also necessary,
based on the precedent with the Taurus in November-December 1997 – allow extra
off-season tests for teams that finish out of the top ten in points; allow extra
tests for new manufacturers or for new models to work out the bugs.

NASCAR created this mess in the first
place when it began restricting testing. It needs to use its head in fixing
things now.