read an article from Larry Mac this morning and saw that and thought it was an interesting little tidbit.........to me NASCAR has got to have some gray area on that, I don't care who it is. And I wish NASCAR would let everyone see the speeds.....there is a good article I'll post about that too

NASCAR won't allow TV
to show pit road speeds
Some top teams say they pick pit stalls according to location of scoring loops
By JIM UTTER
The Charlotte Observer

Matt Sayles / The Associated Press
Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s crew works on his car during a stop on Sunday at California Speedway.While viewers can see how fast cars are going on the track during races, NASCAR does not allow TV networks to display speeds and other data on pit road, officials with NBC and TNT confirmed on Wednesday.

Speeds on pit road have been on the minds of many fans and competitors since Sunday's race at California Speedway. In that race, eventual winner Kasey Kahne was penalized for speeding on pit road while Dale Earnhardt Jr. - right on Kahne's bumper - was not.

All of NASCAR's TV partners - including Fox and FX, which carried the first half of the season - display telemetry during the races. Viewers can see how fast cars are going on the track and such details as the amount of braking and engine RPMs, too.

The networks have the capability to show the information on pit road, just as they do under green-flag conditions during the races, but NASCAR won't allow it.

"We are not allowed to use any telemetry on pit road, as per NASCAR," NBC spokeswoman Alana Russo said.

Asked if TNT wanted to display the information or felt that race fans might want to see it, the cable network answered with a statement from executive producer Jeff Behnke:

"We've discussed it with NASCAR and it is a competition decision, which obviously takes precedence over television enhancements."

Pit road penalties have long been a source of debate among fans and competitors, not just since the Labor Day weekend Cup race.

Before the 2005 season, NASCAR officials using stopwatches made random checks of cars on pit road, calculating average speeds between two points.

Under increasing scrutiny, the stock car sanctioning body changed to an electronic monitoring system that checks every car.

However, one thing did not change: Speeds are still checked by calculating an average speed between two points, through a series of "loops" on pit road. It is not a snapshot of a car's speed, like a radar gun used by police would provide.

So a car's speed on pit road - as might be displayed by the networks were it allowed - isn't determined by the same measurement NASCAR uses to flag violators.

NASCAR also implemented a 5 mph tolerance when moving to the electronic monitoring system. However, that 5 mph is added on top of the average speed calculated between two loops, not to a snapshot measurement of a given moment.

"Pit road speed is a safety rule and was created to promote a safer environment along pit road," NASCAR spokesman Kerry Tharp said Wednesday.

"From a safety standpoint, if teams were able to monitor the pit road speeds via the television broadcast, you could find teams thinking they could try to exceed pit road speed in certain areas of pit road.

"That could create an unsafe situation, and certainly no one wants that," Tharp said.

However, teams are already working that system.

Members of several of NASCAR's top Nextel Cup Series teams told The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday they often choose pit stalls based on the location of the timing loops.

For example, choosing a pit stall that ends just short of a loop could allow a driver to accelerate entering the stall.

A violation would be unlikely since the car is stopped for several seconds and the average speed between loops is well below the maximum

Something smells bad with this whole situation.

I agree, you can't tell me Jr. wasn't speeding since he was right on Kasey's bumper coming down pit road. There's something fishy going on.

and the fishy smell is getting stinkier as time goes.

there is no way that Jr was not speeding as well, he was right on Kasey's ass.

I totally agree.

Like I said to my boyfriend who is a Jr. fan, you have to have the right name in NASCAR.

I'm just not buying that, though, because Kasey himself said on Victory Lane after the race that they actually caught him speeding at a loop just past where the start-finish line runs, which was after where Jr. had peeled off to his pit box.

I'll give you that, but seriously, a half a mile over? There has to be some give on a half a mile over. JMO

Not that it really matters, he still won the race even with the penilty.

I guess I just don't believe in any of the "conspiracy theories" involved with Nascar. You can't really argue with the data acquisition technology in Nascar, imho. It's certainly top of the line.

they say they don't want the teams to know their speeds so they can't speed for a bit cause its unsafe yet what some of the teams are oding by pitting near a loop so they can give it that extra push, isn't that basically the same thing? maybe nascar should look into directly scoring the cars on speed and try to eliminate it all together.

John Darby was on Dialed In yesterday afternoon with some explanations. I don't know exactly how to explain everything he said in correct technical terms, but I'll try based on what I remember.
First, with regard to not posting pit road speeds, they don't want to do that, because then by knowing the RPMs and what gear a competitor was in, a team could then reverse engineer/calculate speed and figure out something about what another team was doing. So he said just like they don't post spring rates for all the teams, they don't post the speeds on pit road.

With regard to Kasey's penalty...pit road speed was 55mph in California. They have a 5 mph grace area. He gave the exact calculations for Kasey and Junior in the 2 speed areas in question. I don't remember the exact numbers, but they were both a few tenths of a mile per hour apart in one box. Then in the next one they both increased the same amount, but Kasey's speed was 60.05mph and Junior's was 55.999. So Kasey was caught speeding, but Junior was under the 60 mph. But technically Kasey was 5.05mph above pit road speed limit.

It was much more clear listening to Mr. Darby than reading this post. But I hope you get the gist anyway.