NASCAR insiders speak out about race manipulation rule changes after 2024 controversies

NASCAR tweaked its rulebook when it comes to manipulating races following a fiasco at Martinsville at the end of the 2024 season that saw an outcry over just such a situation.

Now NASCAR will have quite a bit more leeway to punish manufacturers directly if there is suspected foul play.

“Manufacturer penalties, we obviously knew this was coming after the Martinsville mess last fall,” The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck said on The Teardown podcast. “But now it’s in writing here. If a manufacturer is involved in doing something that NASCAR deems illegal, so this could be a violation of the testing policy, if NASCAR’s like, ‘Wait a minute now, Chevy pulled a fast one here with testing’ or whatever. Wind tunnel policy. The rosters. That’s a thing, the rosters are limited and they have to file the rosters for each event. So is there some funny business there? And the code of conduct, which overall encompasses a lot of things.

“The penalties could be a loss of manufacturer points, a loss of wind tunnel hours, you could have somebody from a manufacturer ejected or suspended. So they have some options now to hold the manufacturers accountable where they really didn’t before. To me this seems like kind of a no-brainer, honestly. I think it’s a very good thing to be able to say.”

Fellow reporter for The Athletic Jordan Bianchi also agreed that this was a necessary change by NASCAR.

“To me I can’t believe that this wasn’t already in the rulebook, to be honest with you,” Bianchi said. “That’s the big thing to me, is how is this not, how did you not have the ability to handle things however you decide to handle them before? That’s what to me came out of Martinsville. It’s like you can’t penalize the manufacturers? Really?”

That will no longer be the case. If Christopher Bell is being helped to better track positioning by Bubba Wallace slowing down, NASCAR can act. If William Byron is having the track blocked for him by Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon, NASCAR can act.

And the penalties are not without teeth, either.

“To me the manufacturer points are a big one, because if you tell the manufacturers, ‘Listen, you’re not going to do this race manipulation stuff and we’re pretty serious about this, and we know how you like to brag how you were the manufacturer’s champion this year in whatever series. We’re going to take away so many points that you just blew it, because you tried to make us look dumb and you tried to make a mockery of our sport. So we’re not going to do that.’ That’s what NASCAR would be saying,” Gluck said. “So there would be a lot of politics in that but I hope they are able to follow through.”