NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France speaks to the media during the Charlotte Motor Speedway Media Tour in Charlotte, N.C., Tuesday.
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A new race format for the NASCAR XFINITY Series Dash 4 Cash is heating up for 2016 as Bristol Motor Speedway prepares for the first of the four shootout-style events. The highest finishing driver among the four Dash 4 Cash eligible drivers will be awarded a $100,000 bonus.
The Xfinity and Camping World Truck Series will use a seven-race Chase to decide their champions. “Winning never has been this important, and the excitement generated the past two seasons in the Sprint Cup Series has led to this implementation of the Chase format in all three national series”.
All three series will crown a champ at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
And Cup divers, who frequently cross over to compete in the Xfinity series races, and occasionally in trucks events, will not be allowed to race in Homestead to avoid mucking up the competitive balance.
One astonishingly dense new rule, though, has left many fans speechless.
While fuel-mileage races – a way for a team without the best equipment that day to sneak a win – aren’t eliminated with a caution clock, the odds of them happening are severely diminished.
A driver can no longer afford to go into a season finale satisfied to protect their spot in the point standings as Truck Series champion Erik Jones did a year ago at Homestead.
The caution flag will fly when the clock hits 00:00 and will reset to 20 minutes for the next green flag. When the clock reaches zero, the caution flag will be displayed.
NASCAR announced Tuesday that the “Dash 4 Cash” program now will be comprised of two short and exciting qualifying heats before the main event.
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The racing format will now include standard qualifying, then two heat races totaling 35 laps each, which will set the field for a 140 lap feature event, similar to what is run weekly at Late Model and lower series events. Those races are at Bristol, Richmond, Dover and Indianapolis. “I think we’ve got enough race cars right now”, Stewart said. “We’re going to embrace technology and innovation”, said France. “We don’t want to break the bank for the track operators, the team owners, or other stakeholders, but we’re going to need to figure it out as we go along”.
