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.”

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“In my opinion, it was just hard racing,” Earnhardt said during Tuesday’s national conference call. “The guy is leading the race, he’s trying to do what he can to win.”

Stewart didn’t agree.

The three-time Cup champion cut off Logano’s car on pit road after the race and went after him physically before being separated by crew members and officials. He then went on a verbal tirade against the 22-year-old Penske Racing driver.

“He has that right, he has the choice to do that,” Stewart said of blocking. “If he ever turns down across in front of me again, I don’t care what lap it is, he won’t make it through the other end of it.

“I’m tired of these guys doing that stuff. Especially out of a kid that’s been griping about everybody else and then he does that the next week. He sent Denny [Hamlin] to the hospital and screwed our day up.”

Stewart, who finished 22nd, was referring to a last-lap crash involving Logano and Hamlin racing for the lead. Hamlin, who wrecked Logano a week earlier at Bristol, suffered a compression fracture in his lower back when his car hit a concrete inside retaining wall and will miss up to five races.

Earnhardt understands there are some who get more upset about blocking than others. He’s just not one of them.

“Every driver is going to have a different opinion,” said Earnhardt, who took advantage of the last-lap crash to finish second and move into the points lead. “I might block in certain situations. I would expect and accept to be blocked in certain situations.

“But you’ve got to give me racetrack. You’ve got to give me somewhere to run. You can’t just run me up into the fence. You’ve got to give me a lane. If you give me a reasonable amount of racetrack to race on, then I really can’t complain in regards to what you’re trying to do to maintain the position.”

Earnhardt said the time of the race also is a factor when it comes to blocking.

“Is it time to be blocking?” he said. “Is the position that important at that moment in time? Again, everybody will have a different opinion. But when somebody blocks me, I’m not blown away by the notion.

“You know, I’m not going to say that I’ve never blocked anybody because I have, and you do, you will. Being in certain situations, that’s your only alternative. But you’ve got to give people racing room or expect to get turned around or expect to make a few people upset.”

Stewart caused a 25-car pileup in which Earnhardt suffered a concussion that sidelined him for two Chase races defending the lead in the closing lap at Talladega last fall.

Stewart, who has been outspoken about blocking several times the past few years, apologized after the race.

“I just screwed up,” he said. “I turned down and cut across Michael [Waltrip] and crashed the whole field. It was my fault, blocking and trying to stay where I was at.”

Logano never got a chance to discuss what happened with Stewart. He said after the race he had to slow down so as not to jump the race leader on the restart, and that when he did Stewart was able to get a jump on him.

“I had to throw the block there,” Logano said. “That was the race for the lead. I felt if [Stewart] got underneath me, that was going to be the end of my opportunity to win the race.”

Logano said he planned to tell Stewart the same thing when they spoke. Asked if he was willing to talk to Logano, Stewart said, “Hell no.”

“After he threw the water bottle at me like a little girl, we’ll go at it now,” he said.

Stewart also referred to Logano as a spoiled rich kid who never worked a day in his life. That brought up another issue that Earnhardt discussed in relation to how his 12-year-old niece Karsyn has many of the same financial advantages Logano had as she pursues a career in racing.

“Hopefully, she’s talented enough, no matter what your background or what your path is to where you are … if you have talent, you belong, and you earn respect through that talent,” he said. “If you’re really good at your job and really good at what you do, it won’t matter how you got there.”

Opinions will vary on that just as they will on blocking. Stewart’s teammate, Ryan Newman, called blocking a “chicken way to drive.”

“It’s just something I don’t do,” he said. “If you’ve got a run on me, take it. If I can get through the corner better than you, then we’ll race, but blocking is an IndyCar form or F1 form or an open-wheel type move it seems like.

“It’s not to say they don’t do it in NASCAR; obviously they do. But to me, it’s just a chicken way of driving and not very respectful for the guys around you. You’re there to race. You’re not there to block.”

Newman didn’t know if Stewart and Logano had talked or planned to before Sunday’s race at Martinsville, but he said you have to be aware if they’re around each other on the half-mile track where contact is expected.

“You have to know what’s going on and watch out for the dramas, but at the same time I have a race of my own to run, and a part of that is watching out for what’s going on, whether it’s something that’s carried over from the past few weeks or something that has happened that day,” Newman said. “Going to have to keep tabs on who turns who or who’s angry or where’s everybody at on their scorecards as you go through a race like Martinsville sometimes.”

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NASCAR also will not penalize six drivers called to the hauler after the California race for entering pit road following the checkered flag when pit road was closed. Neither Stewart nor Logano was called to the hauler.

“A few years ago, we backed away from micromanaging a driver’s emotions,” Sprint Cup Series director John Darby said on Tuesday. “You would hope in today’s world that if somebody didn’t win a race they would be upset about it for whatever reason.

“That’s what our drivers do, they try to win races.”

Darby said there’s a limit to what NASCAR will allow, noting “if guys get in a helluva fight, yeah, we’re going to have to react.”

But Darby said what happened with Stewart and Logano did not put anybody in danger, as was the case in 2011 when Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick were docked $25,000 each for a pit road incident at Darlington.

In that incident, Harvick took a swing at Busch, who remained in his car. Busch then tried to pull away, pushing Harvick’s car into the inside retaining walls with safety workers and crew members in the area.

Darby said there was nothing in the Stewart-Logano incident that came close to that.

Stewart was upset that Logano blocked him on the final restart and that Denny Hamlin was injured in an ensuing wreck that occurred racing Logano for the lead.

After the race, Stewart cut off Logano’s car on pit road with his, approached the Penske Racing driver and then shoved him in the chest. A scuffle erupted between the drivers and team members. Stewart followed that with a verbal assault.

“Dumb little son-of-a-b—- runs us clear down to the infield,” Stewart said in a taped interview shown on Fox’s live broadcast after the race with the profanities bleeped out. “He wants to b—- about everybody else and he’s the one who drives like a little b—-. I’m going to bust his ass.”

Because the words were bleeped out, there was no violation. Darby said there was no foul in the entire incident.

“A couple of drivers at the end of the race arguing a little bit doesn’t create a foul in our world today,” he said. “The crews did a great job of managing their drivers to make sure it didn’t cross the line to where there was physical violence or anything like that. That’s what you’d hope for.

“That’s another example of the state of competition in NASCAR racing, the disappointment that comes sometimes when you don’t win a race. I don’t see any foul there at all.”

As for Hamlin, who suffered a compression fracture in the L1 vertebra of his lower back, it was determined late Tuesday that he won’t need surgery but will be sidelined at least six weeks.

Joe Gibbs Racing said in a statement that Dr. Jerry Petty of Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates will determine “when Hamlin will be able to return to racing this season.”
If he heals according to Petty’s estimated timeline, he’d only miss five races because NASCAR is off this weekend.

Darby said Hamlin’s car that ran into a concrete inside retaining wall will be studied by NASCAR. He said NASCAR and experts also will review where Hamlin’s car hit to determine if recommendations will be made for the track to install SAFER barriers there.

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