NASCAR changes damaged vehicle policy

Kenseth had too many men over the wall

NASCAR will no longer park a driver for the remainder of an event if a team has too many crew members over the wall doing repairs on a crashed vehicle.

The penalty — which pretty much knocked Matt Kenseth out of playoff contention at Kansas last year, when a team miscommunication had an extra person go over the wall while the car was under the damaged vehicle policy — has been changed from parking the car for the rest of the race to a two-lap hold.

NASCAR, which announced the changes Wednesday afternoon, also adjusted the amount of time a crew can spend working on the car, increasing the limit from five minutes to six minutes. One of the reasons for the change is that teams will be limited to five crew members over the wall this year instead of six.

In another rules tweak, NASCAR announced that it has shortened first-round qualifying from 20 minutes to 15 minutes at tracks that are 1.5 miles or less.