NASCAR set to Ban Green-Flag Pit Stops

Note to Einsteins: This and everything on this blog is complete fiction. Amazingly, there's been some confusion.

NASCAR officials plan to ban green-flag pit stops starting with Sunday's Coca-Cola 600, an inside source revealed Thursday.

NASCAR officials decided to make the move as green-flag pit stops become increasingly rare. The last confirmed green-flag pit stop in NASCAR occurred in late 2002, according to league records. In fact, even if NASCAR did nothing, observers expected the trend of increasing car carnage and need for commercial breaks to make the green-flag pit stop obsolete by 2007.

As it was, NASCAR races were averaging so many yellow flags that only the biggest yahoo on the track actually pitted under the green.

"We thought, hell, why wait?" said one NASCAR official who declined to be named. "I mean, take Richmond. What you had there is a 400-lap race with nine caution flags. That's one caution flag every 44 laps (or about 33 miles). Shit, hoss, if you can't get all the pittin' you need when there's a caution flag every 33 miles on average, you shouldn't be drivin.' "

The NASCAR official hastily added that the league "checked with Junior first, a-course" before making the change.

Under the new policy, the pits will be closed whenever the green flag is out. Anyone who was stupid enough to miss a yellow-flag stop would be forced to just run out of gas or smack the wall on really old tires. Either occurrence, ironically, would bring out the yellow flag and allow everyone else to pit.

Veteran crew chiefs said the new rule wouldn't be much of a change. "Hey, when you see drivers going six-wide down the back straight at the Brickyard into turn 3, you might just as well get the tires set out because you know the yellow's coming out and the cars are coming in -- either for fuel and tires or on the back of a wrecker," said one chief.

In other news, NASCAR moved to counter the popularity of Indy Racing League giant Danica Patrick by announcing "Be Kind to the Mrs. Day" at the Coke 600 in Charlotte. Women wearing wedding bands will get 2-for-1 beer until the first caution of the race. Officials said the first yellow might not come out until "lap 8, maybe even lap 12."

Also, the first 10,000 married women in the gate Sunday get a coupon for a complimentary Swiffer duster.

© 2005 Bill Zahren