The Five Minute Repair Rule worked at the 2017 Daytona 500
By Kent Whitaker:
Allow me to get on my soap box today. I’m tired of hearing complaints from fans about rule changes – especially the Five-minute repair rule put into place for the new season. The 2017 Daytona 500 is in the books! Kurt Busch won the Great American Race after sealing a comeback story of huge proportions when it comes to his personal life and his racing career.
Both drivers named Earnhardt saw their day end early, Michael Waltrip ran well, a couple of smaller teams broke through the top-ten, and nobody drove into a track dryer! It was a good day – why the complaints? So, before heading to Atlanta Motor Speedway, I decided to take-a-look at the new rule centered on fixing a wrecked car in five minutes.
A few blog posts back I wrote about several of the rule changes and touched on the five-minute clock. At the time, I was not sure how it would play out. Now, I think that I’m a fan of this new repair rule. In my opinion, the Five-Minute Repair Rule worked at the 2017 Daytona 500
Calm Down Dale Earnhardt Jr Fans:
First, let’s get things straight. Dale Earnhardt Jr was taken out of the race after Kyle Busch had a tire go down. Busch slid around the track collecting several cars including Jr. However, to be clear – Dale Earnhardt Jr was not taken out of the race by the Five-minute rule. The team did an amazing job getting that car out onto the track following repairs on pit-lane. They were under the five-minute mark!
What ended Dale’s day was that he realized that no matter what they did if they came back in for more repairs… the car was toast. Who knows if they could have even kept up the required minimum speed?
Five Minute Rule made Simple:
In case you didn’t know – The new for 2017 Five-minute rule simply means that a team is limited to five minutes on pit lane to fix their car. After a week of fan discussion prior to the race about how devastating this rule would be it turned out to be amazingly simple.
Yes, I’ve heard a few Dale Earnhardt Jr fans, as mentioned above, complain about the change from years past where a car would go behind the wall for several laps and comeback out. After all, he was the biggest name to be taken out of the race because of it. But, for the most part the rule did what it was supposed to do. It limited the number of damaged and lapped cars back on the track following repairs that were trailing pieces and parts.
Yes, there were repaired cars back on the track. But I did not see any that were trailing long flapping pieces of tape swirling in the wind as if someone had toilet paper stuck on their shoe. Thus, no junk falling off – no pieces damaging other cars.
The Drivers Idea?
I’ve heard several media reports saying that the five-minute rule, and the behind the wall rule, were ideas that the drivers suggested. They suggested the idea that If a car could not be fixed in five minutes on pit lane then there was a good possibility that the car would not be safe to drive.
Hat’s off to NASCAR for taking a suggestion from the only people in the sport that matter in a fan’s mind – the drivers. If it were not for them there would be no racing!
I’m sure the new rules will be tested in several ways over the coming weeks and the entire 2017 season. But, for now, I think that NASCAR finally put a few rules in place that seem to work and may even prove to help make races more exciting than seasons past.
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“Kent Whitaker, often called ‘the Deck Chef’ is a sportswriter, culinary writer, and cookbook author with fourteen titles. He covers NASCAR, racing in general, Football, barbecue, grilling, and tailgating. You can visit him on The Deck Chef .”