NASCAR is continuing to work on viable options to get a car back to pit road when it has four flat tires after Joey Logano was the latest to express frustration over the process.
Logano was stuck in Turn 1 at Pocono Raceway on Sunday afternoon with four flat tires and had to be towed back to pit road. The reigning NASCAR Cup Series champion complained that it didn’t make sense to drag the car around the track, further damaging it, while bouncing the driver around in the cockpit.
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“Joey and I spoke yesterday and had a great conversation and here’s the real positive, he and I agree 100% and we’re on the same team of trying to fix it,” NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said on Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “This is not necessarily a Next Gen car problem as much as a no ride height (rule). Even our cars in the past on four flat tires … would basically have similar situations having difficulty getting back to pit road from time to time.
“Not to the level of that we’ve had with our Next Gen car, so we have a plan in place today that we were working toward, and we did this past weekend, to execute getting the 22 back to pit road.
“Obviously, (it’s) a two-and-a-half mile racetrack, just taking vehicles straight to pit road there are a of negative consequences that come with that from scoring the event. We’re shortcutting the course (and) a lot of things behind the scenes that are not on the table to make that work that way.”
Sawyer did agree it was not ideal to tow a car all the way around the track, but it’s what had to be done in that situation. Logano was spun on lap 36, going across the track and hitting the outside all in Turn 1 with the driver’s side. In the process of the spin, all four tires went flat.
Initially, the safety crews tried to push the No. 22 Ford Mustang away from the scene. However, the car was stuck on the racing surface and unable to move. The process has been for the two truck to lift the rear of the car, leaving the front on the ground, and bring it back to pit road.
“But we will go to work to figure out what the next procedure is to be able to get the cars,” Sawyer said. “We need to get them picked up straight and get on a rollback and get them back. Towing them or pushing them back is not ideal but it is what we have today.
“And as far as putting tires and a jack and electric impact on a chase vehicle and getting them to the incident, I’m not saying that’s not on the table, but it’s pretty far down the priority list for the simple reason that just fast forward to a superspeedway where we could potentially have multiple vehicles sitting there with four flat tires.
“So, what are we going to do, pull out the point standings and say, OK, go get the point leader first? Those things are just not practical in a way during the event to be able to recover those vehicles.
“Our team here at the R&D Center is wide-open to figure out the next steps on that. This is something that came up at Auto Club in year one. We have a procedure now. Our folks at Steps Towing do a phenomenal job; they’ve been a great partner and teammate on the towing side. They’re with us every week so they have an understanding of what we’re up against, so we’ll get to a good place and continue to work with our drivers and again, had a great conversation with Joey yesterday on some ideas and some thoughts.
“I wish it was a light switch. I wish we could flip a switch and have it fixed overnight. If it was that easy, we would already have it done.”