NASCAR will institute the “choose cone rule” for the non-points All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway on July 15, sources confirmed to The Athletic. An announcement is expected to be made Wednesday.
The “choose cone rule” allows drivers to decide which lane they start in on a restart. As the field is given the one lap to go signal they must elect whether to start in the inside or outside lane, and once they make a decision they cannot change lanes without forfeiting their position. The rule is seen as a way to negate the disadvantage of restarting in a lane that is significantly slower than the other. Under the current system used in all NASCAR Cup Series races, at some tracks drivers often will intentionally lose a position exiting pit road to avoid restarting in the undesirable lane.
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Although it’s used at short tracks around the country, the choose cone rule has never been utilized at the national series level by NASCAR, which only allows the driver of the control vehicle to pick his preferred restart lane. All other drivers are required to line up according to their running position — drivers in odd-numbered positions restart in the inside lane, even-numbered positions in the outside lane.
Drivers have openly lobbied for the choose rule, including Austin Dillon, who suggested in a tweet earlier this month that NASCAR would finally do just that at the All-Star Race.
“I’ve been bringing it up for years,” Joey Logano said on May 22. “… Every meeting that I’ve had (with NASCAR) I’ve always brought up the choose rule. Let’s do it. I see nothing bad that it can bring. It brings another strategy to the table, it’s definitely something to talk about. You don’t have luck involved. You see guys hit their brakes at the end of pit road — No. 1 that’s not real safe, but, two, you try to line yourself up sixth and then the car in front of you gets a speeding penalty and you’re like, ‘I gave up a spot and now I’m on the bottom too. I really blew it.’ That happens out there so many times that everybody is trying to play the game, so just put a cone out there and say, ‘Go left or right.’ Where you go is where you are.”
For now, the choose rule will only be used at the All-Star Race. Because there are no points awarded, NASCAR has long viewed the event as the ideal way to experiment with different rules to test them under live conditions. For instance, the All-Star Race was where NASCAR first used double-file restarts before they became standard in all points races.
This year’s All-Star Race is being held at Bristol for the first time. Charlotte Motor Speedway traditionally hosts the All-Star Race in mid-May, but the event was postponed, then shifted to the half-mile Bristol oval to accommodate up to 30,000 fans. Fans are currently not permitted to attend races at Charlotte due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“I would definitely be for that and I think it’s a good option,” Martin Truex Jr. said on May 22. “I think it works well on short tracks where they do it. I think with this rules package that we have on the bigger tracks, it would be something that as drivers we’d all be interested in.”
(Top photo: Chris Graythen / Getty Images)
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