In an attempt to spice up qualifying, pit road speeds that are strictly enforced in races as a safety measure will be lifted for Friday night’s three-lap trip around Charlotte Motor Speedway that includes a mandatory four-time stop.

Greg Biffle anticipates cars will come down pit road in excess of 100 mph — well over the 45 mph used in races — with drivers that push the limit losing control and ending up in the infield grass.

“Practice is the thing to watch, not the real qualifying,” the Roush Fenway Racing driver said during an appearance Wednesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “The thing is, you don’t know [what will happen] until you try it.

“It’s like, ‘Hey, can you make it from the balcony into the pool without hitting the pool deck?’ There’s one way to figure it out. You can do all the calculating you want, but you’ve just got to try it.”

Another tweak announced Wednesday will allow the winner of the Sprint Fan Vote from the Showdown to advance into the main event without being on the lead lap as long as the car is in “raceable” condition as determined by Sprint Cup Series director John Darby.

Some have dubbed that the “Danica Patrick Rule,” noting that the popular Stewart-Haas Racing driver could benefit.

Patrick has finished on the lead lap in only two of 11 races this season.

“I don’t need to say any names,” David Ragan said when asked if the rule was made for any driver in particular. “We can all assume and make pretty good guesses. But there’s usually good reasons for making any rule change.”

Ragan doesn’t like the rule, even though officials said prior to last season the winner of the fan vote didn’t have to be on the lead lap.

“I don’t think that’s right,” said Ragan, who earned his way into the All-Star race with a surprise victory at Talladega Superspeedway. “You need to be competitive. It’s a contradicting rule. So you can’t be torn up and get in, but if you’re slow and not on the lead lap, why should you be in the All-Star race? In my opinion, that’s not a good rule for the intent of the All-Star race.

“The All-Star race is supposed to be about the best of the best.”

That will be the case in qualifying, where it will take skill to get on and off pit road at a higher than normal speed.

“Heck, we had trouble sliding through our pit box going 45 mph, so I can only imagine,” Ragan said. “Watch out Kurt Busch. I know he’s going to be coming down hard.”

Pit road limits have been set since 1991, the year after a Ricky Rudd’s car spun 180 degrees on pit road in Atlanta and slammed into Bill Elliott’s car. Elliott’s tire changer, Mike Rich, died after being caught in between the cars.

Other cars will not be on pit road during All-Star qualifying, and crew members will not be allowed to come over the wall until the car is stopped, which is not the case in a race.

“We’ll do that only for qualifying and only for the All-Star race because we can control the environment and it’ll be very clean down there,” NASCAR president Mike Helton said. “It’s an opportunity to do something on a weekend that is known for different stuff.”

The race will consist of four 20-lap segments and a 10-lap shootout with the winner collecting $1 million. Speedway Motorsports Inc. chairman Bruton Smith is offering another $1 million if a driver can win all five segments.

But qualifying could be the biggest spectacle.

“I can promise you guys are going to be off in the grass,” Biffle said. “I may be one of them.”

The post No pit speed limit in All-Star race appeared first on IdealCapper.

NASCAR’s vice president of racing operations said on Monday it is doubtful the race would have been restarted after being stopped for rain on Lap 122 of a scheduled 188-lap event were it not for the sport’s new compressed-air drying system.

“If that was a year ago, it is highly doubtful that race gets restarted,” Steve O’Donnell told ESPN.com. “That track obviously is the toughest on the circuit to be able to dry. We were able to shave about an hour off [the drying process].”

Carl Edwards led when the race was red-flagged for about three hours and 36 minutes due to two storms that soaked the 2.66-mile track. The race ended under near darkness with one attempt at a green-white-checkered finish, which Ragan took advantage of to give Front Row Motorsports the unexpected win.

O’Donnell said Air Titan reduced the drying time from the normal three-plus hours to just under two. While that is not the 80 percent reduction officials hope to ultimately get from the device, they were pleased with the results that they believe would have been better had temperatures been warmer.

That the machine helped reduce moisture while rain continued, the first time it has been used in that situation, also was a positive.

“I’d give it a B,” O’Donnell said. “We got the race in, which is the ultimate goal.”

O’Donnell said it’s doubtful Saturday’s Nationwide Series race that had to be cut short by a few laps would have been run on the scheduled day at all were it not for the Air Titan. Looking at weather conditions in Talladega on Monday, he said the Cup and Nationwide races could have been pushed to as late as Tuesday.

“It definitely feels good to give fans a chance to see the finish of the race on Sunday instead of racing today when the weather was iffy as well,” O’Donnell said.

NASCAR has been using jet-fuel dryers since the mid-1970s. A few years ago, chairman Brian France challenged the Research and Development Center in Concord, N.C., to come up with a way to shorten drying time to lessen the inconvenience on fans and television partners.

The Air Titan concept was fast-forwarded after the 2012 Daytona 500 was postponed from Sunday to Monday.

The device was introduced during speed weeks prior to this year’s Daytona 500 where rain wasn’t an issue. It was used on a smaller scale at half-mile Martinsville Speedway to dry the track for the first day of practice.

But it wasn’t put to the full test until Saturday and Sunday at Talladega.

“We’ve got more work to do for sure,” O’Donnell said. “But the end goal is to ensure the fans that paid to see the race get to see it on the days scheduled. Obviously, we accomplished that.”

Air Titan works by using compressed air to push water off the racing surface and onto the track apron, where vacuum trucks remove the moisture. Jet dryers follow to blow off any excess water.

“We’re still in Phase 1,” O’Donnell said. “But we made some good progress. We’ve got to work on the power source to see how we can speed up the ability to get water off the track. Talladega really was the best test to date to see how it works under the worst conditions. Looking at the total drying time, we feel we cut an hour out of it, which ultimately enabled us to get back to racing.”

The post VP: Air Titan helped David Ragan appeared first on IdealCapper.

She wound up finishing 39th.

Patrick was on the lead lap, running 26th on Lap 185 of the 312-lap event, when the tire blew as she was coming out of Turn 4. At that point, she wasn’t able to turn the car, so it slammed into the SAFER barrier on the right front corner of the car.

Pieces of the car flew off the car as the back tires lifted off the ground. When the car bounced off the wall, David Ragan’s car slammed into the driver side door panel of Patrick’s car, shearing off most of the left-side sheet metal of Patrick’s Chevy as the hood flew off. Pieces of Patrick’s car were visible for more than 200 yards down the frontstretch.

“When you lose a tire out of the turn, those are tough because you hit [the wall] more straight on,” Patrick said. “That was a hard hit on both sides, but I’m fine. There was no real good warning. No vibrations.

“It just sucks to lose the points. We were having a steady day; not great, but making progress.”

The post Danica Patrick wrecks at Phoenix appeared first on IdealCapper.