Pitbox Mayhem or How A.J.’s Rear Panel Wound Up on My Front Bumper

During the 2010 Shelby American at Las Vegas Motor Speedway back on Feb. 28, Greg Biffle, exiting his pitbox, had to back up to get around the protruding rear of A.J. Allmendinger’s 43 car, which had just nose-dived into the box ahead of Biffle’s.

But Allmendinger, like dozens of cars before him in any number of races you care to examine, failed to enter his space in a traditionally clean manner, squared to the box. Biffle’s resulting backup cost him precious seconds reentering the fray and indicates a problem that seems to be patently ignored by NASCAR officials. Most of the cautions that occur during the course of a race tend to bring the majority of the pack down pit lane at the same time. That’s akin to a downtown Atlanta traffic jam at the peak of rush hour.

There is a solution to all this pitbox mayhem, albeit NASCAR’s brain trust would have to—pardon the pun—think outside the box. One might suppose that a favorable resolution would be to simply lengthen the pitboxes. But as is the case with most tracks, there just isn’t enough room on the interior of the track to lengthen them more than they already are, unless you put pit lanes on both sides of the track and divide the total number of pitboxes between them. Again, not very practical with the current layouts of most of the circuits.

The solution? Cut that 43-car field! I’ve long advocated such a measure for other reasons, mainly the logjam of perennial backmarkers created by a large field, and you know who they are: the Joe Nemecheks, the Dave Blaneys, the Michael Waltrips. How many times in the past two years has Waltrip drawn the first caution or instigated initial contact—usually with the wall—in a race? Got a calculator?

I say get the field down to 35 and leave it there. That would still be a third more than the field of an F1 or an IndyCar race, but at least it would create manageable breathing room—and then you could lengthen the pitboxes on pit lane and eliminate conditions that cause a Greg Biffle to have to go backwards before he can go forward on exit.

F1: It is safe to say after just three races on the F1 calendar that Red Bull Racing/Renault’s young driving prodigy, Sebastian Vettel, is clearly the man to beat for the series’ 2010 driving title. Sunday, Vettel showed his tail feathers to the rest of the field at Kuala Lampur’s Sepang International Circuit, in the Malaysian Grand Prix, the young racer’s first victory of the season, after leading the first two races handily before mechanical breakdowns forced early retirement in both. At Sepang, Vettel out-dueled fellow Red Bull running mate Mark Webber on the first turn and was never headed. But race watchers also got to see a phenomenal charge through the field by McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, who started 20th on the grid after poorly qualifying in the rain the previous day. By just Lap 4, Hamilton had brilliantly moved up to 10th spot but could ultimately get no higher than sixth. Ferrari’s Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonzo run 1-2 in the standings.

Alan Ross is the author of 32 books and a regular contributor to American Profile. E-mail: alanross_sports@yahoo.com
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