If you pit during the race with the rear of your car over the line in the back of your pit box, you get penalized.

If you pit during the race with any tire other than the right rear outside of your pit box, you get penalized.

If you speed on pit road either entering or leaving the pits, you get penalized.

If you pit before pit road is open, you get penalized.

If you have more than 7 guys over the wall during a pit stop, you get penalized.

If any of your pit equipment, i.e. gas can, jack, air gun, catch can, etc, leaves the pit box, you get penalized.

If you run over the air hose, you get penalized.

If you leave the pit box before all your equipment, i.e. tires, jack, air guns, etc, are at least halfway back to the wall, you get penalized.

If a tire rolls out of your pit box, you get penalized.

If you run over your crew or someone else's and knock them to the ground, or sprawl them out on your hood, or knock them over the wall, or just plain go through them, NO PENALTY.

What??

All of the above rules that come with a penalty were put in place for one reason and one reason only, safety.

How does penalizing a driver or team after an incident occurs promote safety? Well, its simple. If a team knows that the breaking of the above rules is going to warrant a penalty that could take them out of contention or cost them valuable spots and points and money, then they will be extra careful to not break those rules.

So, having stiff penalties for pit road violations makes the teams and drivers pay extra attention to details so as not to break the rules. So, in summary, the whole point of any penalty is to put focus on being careful and to promote safety.

Then why the hell does NASCAR allow teams to pass each other on pit road and why are they still using stop watches to time pit road speed and why arent there bigger penalties for hitting crew members on pit road?

Jeff Gordon said it best in his post race interview. He said that as long as NASCAR does not have a rule about passing other cars and charging into your pit box, then drivers will take that chance and try to get all they can while staying within the rules.

Let me explain how the pit road speed limit works and how the "passing" on pit road stays within this rule.

When the cars come down pit road they cross a series of "timing lines" painted perpendicular to the track at specified intervals. NASCAR has figured out how long it should take a car to get from one line to the next at a certain speed. So, they have people who MANUALLY time each car coming in and out and if they pass from one line to the next in a time that is less than the predetermined allowed time, they get penalized.

But this is where the flaw is. Each pit box has a timing line somewhere before it and somewhere after it. As you cross the lines coming in you are timed, but when you cross the last line before your pit box, you can speed up and charge towards your pit box and pass a car or pull up along side a car and slide into your pit box. You can not be caught for speeding because you stop in your box before you get to that next timing line. Therefore that last 50 feet, 100 feet whatever it turns out to be, becomes a free pass. That is how Jeff Gordon crashed into Jimmie Johnson's crew.

Jeff had passed the last timing line before his pit, he did not realize Michael Waltrip was going to be pitting behind him, so he tried to dive under Waltrip and pass him while charging into his pit. He thought Waltrip would be maintaining pit road speed as he approached the next timing line, but Waltrip turned down into his pit which was before Gordon's. The two collided sending Jeff into Johnson's crew and fortunately not killing or seriously injuring anyone.

We have seen this same thing many times with guys "passing" each other on pit road. Three things need to happen IMMEDIATELY. Brian France, this is your chance to start out on the right foot with your new position at NASCAR.

Number 1, make it illegal to pass anyone entering the pits. Once you hit that first scoring line you MUST STAY SINGLE FILE and can not pull alongside anyone. If you do, it’s a 2 lap penalty. That will eliminate the passing part. The 2nd thing is that it needs to be a rule that if you do hit someone on pit road, whether it is your fault or not, it is a 5 lap penalty. This will make guys think twice about taking that extra chance for a precious half-a-second.

If you get spun by someone else then they get the penalty. If you spin out at all on pit road, it should be a 1 lap penalty minimum.

The 3rd thing is for NASCAR to use the telemmetry that is in the cars already with the TV crews and monitor pit road speed with that. Then no one can charge their pit box and they must maintain the speed limit all the way and they can not cheat it.

In my opinion, Jeff Gordon should have been penalized for the move he made to try to gain some position on Waltrip on pit road. Carl Edwards also should have been penalized for hitting his crew Saturday in the Truck race. His first pit stop, he hit his crewmember because he slid in sideways. On his next stop, he slid in identically, again, and the only reason he didn’t hit anyone is because they were expecting it and stayed back on the wall until he was stopped.

Chad Knauss went over the wall to check his fender after Gordon hit the crew. Chad had no helmet on and made it 8 guys over the wall, yet Johnson did not get penalized, he went on to win the race. Knauss says he was going to check on his crew members. Yet he looked at the car and went back over the wall and did not look over to where the crew members were. What if while Jeff Gordon was backing up, someone hit him and knocked him into Knauss who had no helmet on? Rules are rules and Knauss going over the wall was a penalty. They got away with it.

I am not going to go into my rant on what happened with guys racing back to the yellow while Dale Jarrett was a sitting duck in the middle of the track with flames coming out from the hood. Granted the fire wasn’t bad, but what if it was and Jarrett had to get out in a hurry? They were 3 and 4 wide going by him at 140 MPH. Something needs to be done. I will write more on that and my suggestions on fixing that situation later this week.

NASCAR was formed to help the drivers with safety issues and with getting the track owners and race promoters to take better care of the drivers. Let's get back to that philosophy and make it better and safer for the drivers and the teams.

Someone is going to get killed on pit road, then we will get a rule change. It's too late then. DO IT NOW!!!

Thanks and keep reading!

Rob
RobFaiella@insidethepitbox.com