Drivers Want Explanations After Truex Pit Road Penalty at Kentucky

NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O'Donnell addressed the penalty levied against Martin Truex Jr. on pit road in Saturday night's Sprint Cup Series race at Kentucky.

I'd probably relate this to other sports. If you look at the three-second rule (in the NBA), you know it's always there; it's probably rarely called because you don't see it blatantly. Then you'll see a coach or some teams say, 'Hey you got to focus on this rule because it's getting out of hand.' That was the case certainly for us, we saw a trend that's getting bigger and bigger."

The Pokemon GO app is getting bigger and bigger. This unheard of penalty is not. NASCAR Race Hub Analysts Larry McReynolds and Adam Alexander, with guest Regan Smith, break down the penalty 


Although Truex worked his way back up for a 10th-place finish, he had one of the dominant cars in Saturday's race and was visibly upset on pit road afterward.

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But Matt Kenseth, who is connected to Truex through Joe Gibbs Racing’s alliance with Furniture Row Racing, knows why Truex would pass Kevin Harvick to Harvick’s left while entering his pit box.

“I’m sure if he passed to the left coming into the pits, it’s technically against the rules, but they haven’t called it in a long time,” Kenseth said Tuesday during a test at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. “If there’s something not being called and you’re trying to get every advantage you can and the cars are all incredibly so close to the same speed right now and the rules are so tight, pit road is as competitive as the race track is.

“You’re always going to try and get every advantage you can with speed lines or what have you.”

“There’s some places where there’s been some pretty questionable situations where you have really slow pit roads speed like Martinsville or something like that, where people will pull left and pass five cars coming to their pit stall.”

But when it comes to the passing rule, Kenseth said “I think everybody knows what the rules are there.”

NASCAR sports writers were all over this even days after the race.




O'Donnell said the rule would be reiterated to the industry before this weekend at New Hampshire and clarified if needed.