NASCAR: Boys, keep your hands off the skirts
NASCAR is set to crack down on crew members who can't keep their hot little hands off of the skirts -- the side skirts of Sprint Cup cars, that is.
Last year during pit stops, enterprising teams discovered they could reach down and grab the skirts that hang below the body and run from the rear-wheel opening to near the front-wheel opening. With a quick yank of the back end of the skirt, it would suddenly be flared outward, creating additional aerodynamic sideforce and even a little downforce.
NASCAR decided it didn't want to enact a rules change during the middle of the Chase for the Sprint Cup last year, but this year the message is clear: No touching allowed. To that point, NASCAR issued an updated tech bulletin earlier this week on the issue.
In an exclusive interview with FOXSports.com, Sprint Cup Series managing director Richard Buck said NASCAR will not tolerate any shenanigans on pit road this year.
"At any time during an event that we see somebody pulling a side skirt -- identify it through any resource that we have, whether it's the network TV, our officials on the ground, our new PRO system," said Buck. "If we identify it under a yellow caution flag, we're going to have the crew chief bring the car back to the pits and repair it to our satisfaction.
"Once it's repaired under the yellow, that car will line up with the other penalty cars at the rear of the field. It'll take the green then, and once it takes the green, it will serve a green-flag pass-through penalty unimpeded by the yellow."
Teams will also be penalized for violations during green-flag stops.
"We'll get with the crew chief and bring it down pit road, and they'll have to fix it under the green," Buck said.
Individual crew members are at risk, too.
"If we identify a crew member that has done the modifications, we'll start out with a warning and start ratcheting up from there," Buck said.
So NASCAR's message is clear: Boys, keep your hands off the skirts.
