A popular short track concept is being explored by NASCAR.
The “cone rule” is a simple idea where a physical cone is placed on the track and drivers will either go left or right, whichever lane they wish to restart for. What makes this intriguing is the possibility of a driver being deeper in the pack. moves forward if it chooses the opposite of the popular path choice.
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller told SiriusXM Radio’s “The Morning Drive” that the sanctioning body has so far only gone as far as talking about the rule of the cone.
“As we do here at NASCAR, we are constantly looking for ways to make the racing and the action more interesting for fans. It’s something we’ve talked about a little bit,” Miller said. “But we talk about a lot of things and when the final decision is made, I’m not sure what it will be, but it’s certainly been a topic of discussion.”
The game played on pit road this weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway is what sparked the conversation. Denny Hamlin tried several times to check out of the pits in order to find himself in an even position. Hamlin desperately wanted to restart in the top lane, which was the optimal lane for Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race restarts.
Unfortunately for Hamlin, it didn’t work out, but his actions didn’t go unnoticed as it wasn’t the first time NASCAR had seen drivers make such a decision.
“We will definitely look into it. What we saw unfold that everyone is talking about was pretty obvious. Ironically, it didn’t really work — sometimes these things don’t work,” Miller said. “That’s something we don’t want, because we don’t need accidents at the end of pit road with people checking.
“We’re going to figure out how we’re going to resolve this and try to move on.” In reality, this only comes into play in a few places. We know when this might happen, so we’ll try to fix it.
