NASCAR Rule changes for 2013

NASCAR officials went over many of the new rules and policies for 2013 during a meeting with the media on Thursday. Past champion's issue was among those discussed. Past Sprint Cup champions can use a past champion's provisional only once every six races this season instead of having unlimited access to provisionals as in the past. Provisional starting spots are available to drivers who don't make the field on speed under NASCAR's new qualifying rules. Any past champion who ran at least one race the previous season starts the year with one provisional starting spot. Once a driver uses it, they must make six attempts to qualify before getting another past champion's provisional – the driver would get use of the provisional at that sixth race.

NASCAR has changed the qualifying rules for Sprint Cup in 2013. Instead of the top 35 teams being locked into a race, only seven drivers will enter a race with a guaranteed a spot.

The first 36 spots will be based on qualifying speed, then six spots go to non-qualifiers based on owner points. The final spot goes to a past champion. If there's no past champion, the final spot goes to the next driver based on owner points.

The change is only for Cup and not for the Nationwide or Camping World Truck Series. Those series have impound races and NASCAR did not want teams to feel they needed to run a qualifying setup to get into the race and then try to make race-setup adjustments on pit stops, NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said Thursday.

The Nationwide Series, which has cut its fields from 43 to 40 cars, will lock in the top 30 in owner points while the Camping World Truck Series will lock in the top 25 in owner points.

Among other new race weekend procedures for 2013:
" The qualifying order will be determined by random draw for Cup, while the qualifying order for Nationwide and truck will be the driver's best speed from all practice sessions, slowest to fastest.

" For all three series, the current year's owner points will be used starting with the fourth race of the season.

" For the Sprint Unlimited, the vote taken by fans at the track that day for the starting order will have three options. Those options have changed since the original announcement last month. The new options are career wins, 2012 driver points or pole speed that got them in the race.

" Gas men will not be able to make any adjustments to the car while fuel is going into the car. They can only make adjustments after the fuel can is disengaged from the gas intake. Several times last season, gas cans either remained attached to the cars or fell off the cars as the cars sped away. Sporting News