On Tuesday NASCAR officials announced an ambitious procedure to codify infractions penalties, and appeals in black letter specific details for the first time in its' 66-year history.
Under the previous system a technical violation would result in the piece of equipment or entire car being removed by NASCAR. Days later penalties would be announced, but, the severity wasn't quite explained.
The new system lists six levels of technical infractions and their penalties. NASCAR officials also announced that repeat offenders would see the penalties ramped up.
While the new structure is commendable, and for the first time itemizes specific types of infractions and penalties, it also comes with new terminology and charts adding to the plethora of new names announced last week for the new Chase for the Sprint Cup Rules.
When Bill France Sr. founded NASCAR rules were enforced out of the spotlight of public opinion. But, as the series outgrew its' regional roots and emulated sports like the National Football League, it also out grew arm twisting and other suggestive means, to maintain an even playing field.
Steve O'Donnell NASCAR's Executive Vice President of Racing Operations, explained how the procedures came about, “I think one of those things was we sometimes put ourselves in tough spots with penalties not being listed in the rule book, and where did NASCAR come up with this particular penalty, and it's never our intent to have those "gotcha" moments. We don't want to penalize anyone, but when we have to, we want to be as transparent as possible.”
One big area which has not been set down in tabular form is driver conduct. As Robin Pemberton, the Vice President of Competition Racing Development, NASCAR explained “Behavioral infractions are still handled on a case‑by‑case basis and are not built into this particular system.”
What Pemberton means is licensed competitor conduct. Examples of “behavior infractions,” include (from 2013) Denny Hamlin's penalty for stating that his team's Gen 6 car was not as competitive as the previous one. Or the suspension of Michael Waltrip executive, Ty Norris, for manipulating his drivers' finishes at the second race at Richmond to get Martin Truex, Jr. into the NASCAR playoffs called “The Chase.” No doubt intentionally wrecking a rival would be considered a behavioral infraction.
NASCAR has renamed its' governance of technical matters the NASCAR Deterrence System and that's just the beginning of new jargon for governance.
And the sanctioning body has also revamped its' appeals procedure, replacing John Middlebrook as the chief appellate officer. Middlebrook, a former General Motors executive, had overturned or reduced a huge percentage of NASCAR-imposed penalties previously.
Bryan Moss, who is president emeritus at Gulfstream Aerospace, has been named the “final appeals officer.” Mr. O'Donnell went out of his way to state that the naming of a new appeals officer had nothing to do with the outcome of previous appeals, but, Moss's technical knowledge was more appropriate to decide appeals.
And, of course, the new appellate system comes with new names, too.
In the end NASCAR may have begun to set up a structure that will ensure predictable results for infractions in the future. Only the amount of new names and procedures makes Formula One governance look simple by comparison.
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