Far fewer impound races on tap for '06 season
Ryan Smithson
NASCAR.COM

The impound rule is not dead yet, but the number of races where it
will be used will be drastically reduced for 2006.

NASCAR will impound the Nextel Cup cars at five races in 2006: Both
Talladega events, both Richmond events, and the Pepsi 400 at
Daytona, according to a memo sent to teams last week.

NASCAR used the impound rule at 21 of the 36 races in 2005. Neither
of the Talladega events was an impound race last year. The rule was
consistently criticized throughout the year as vastly different
weekend schedules led to confusion and large amounts of downtime.

An impound race usually featured two Friday practices and Saturday
Bud Pole Qualifying instead of the traditional Friday Bud Pole
Qualifying and Saturday practices.

http://www.nascar.com/2005/news/headlines/cup/12/20/impound_races/

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This is why they are limiting the number of cars per owner in the future
IMO....Today's "few" owners rose up, and basically shot down impound racing
with their "wasted time" complaints and monetary arguments.

NASCAR cannot have this much power with such limited distribution, and needs
to spread it out over more owners in the future to maintain absolute control
over the rules making process.

And we also can't forget the reasoning that weekends were spread out over
Fridays and Sundays at certain impound events this year, that's the track
promoters selling tickets for "Friday" events such as practice and
qualifying. So in this case, it looks like little sis over at ISC bent
Brian's ear and told him that the events, by and large, needed to remain "3
day shows" for the sake of Friday ticket, concession and parking lot
revenue...Seems the research put into this impound deal left out the fact
that NASCAR owns the tracks that 22 events are run at each season...right
hand, hello, this is the left hand speaking, lol.

My take: Impound racing goes away entirely after 2006. OR, NASCAR gets out
of the track ownership business, which I don't see happening. Plus, 2007 is
when the NASCAR Prototypes (err Cars of Tomorrow) take to the track, and
teams will need all the test and practice time they can get at that
point...it's also the last year of the current deal with Goodyear...it'll be
a busy year to try and re-implement impounding IMO.


"Alan Jones" <alan (AT) alanjones (DOT) us> wrote

SimRacer wrote:
I think it's stupid to keep even these 5 - both races at Talladega?
That's idiotic. Nascar is just trying to save face, and won't admit
that the impound as they devised it was a failure.

N.

"Nancy1" <nancy-dooley (AT) uiowa (DOT) edu> wrote

Couldn't have summed it up any better myself Nancy. I certainly agree that
impounding plate races, at EITHER venue is not that smart. If there is ONE
TIME they need some extra track time and practice, it's in those mongo packs
of cars at the plate tracks. Give 'em a Q practice on Friday AM, then Q
Friday PM. And let them have a couple of long practices on Saturday and then
there again MAY COME A DAY when we can have a plate race without 10 cautions
and 20 wadded up cars...maybe. lol

All and all, what was put forth as a "cost containment" measure for the
teams, has turned out to hurt NASCAR (via it's track division, ISC) and they
can't back off of it fast enough it seems. I mean this has been announced
and it isn't even CHRISTMAS 2005 yet....and the timing of things can be a
big tell...