Columnist Brian Hilderbrand: Marlin prompts change in pit speeding enforcement

Tuesday, March 12, 2002 | 9:56 a.m.

Brian Hilderbrand covers motor sports for the Las Vegas Sun. His motor sports notebook appears Friday. He can be reached at bh@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4089.

As a result of Sterling Marlin's controversial win at Las Vegas Motor Speedway earlier this month, NASCAR will change the way it enforces speeding in the pits beginning with Sunday's Winston Cup race at Darlington Raceway.

Drivers caught exceeding the pit-road speed limit will be brought back into the pits for a "drive through" at the proper speed, but they will not be allowed to stop in their pits.

Previously, a driver caught speeding either entering of exiting the pits was brought back in and held in their pit box for 15 seconds.

The change came about after Marlin was caught speeding entering the pits during the March 3 UAW-DaimlerChrysler 400 at LVMS. NASCAR officials could not get word to Marlin's crew in time to assess the penalty, so the sanctioning body elected not to penalize Marlin.

"We all know making (Marlin) come back in to serve the penalty would have been too severe a penalty for the competitor," NASCAR president Mike Helton said Sunday in announcing the rules change. "But we also know it might not have been fair to everybody else."

"I'm pretty superstitious," Stewart said. "I won't drive cars with 13 on it. I won't stay in hotel rooms if room number adds up to 13.

"I've got all kind of quirky little (superstitions) ... but having 13 wins, I'm not going to go home tonight and take back roads to try to avoid traffic or worry about going under ladders or anything."

He was right. The yellow flag came out three times in the final 66 laps. And Busch dropped out of the lead pack when he pitted during a late caution period and took four tires while the eventual front-runners took only two. Busch finished 11th.

"I knew it was going to go yellow," Busch said. "These races always end up yellow. There are no more fuel mileage games; there are no more 60-lap runs. It's all either a 40-lap dash or a 20-lap dash.

"People that aren't factors are taking two tires and running in the top five, so we finished 11th."

"A lot of people are on the hot seat," Petty said, addressing rumors that driver Buckshot Jones' position with the team is in jeopardy. "The way we've run for a year, if the sponsors aren't screaming there's a problem with that. They're screaming a little bit; they want us to run better.

"All of our deals with all of our drivers are pretty much up in the air when it comes to stuff like that. It's an at-will kind of deal. For us, I'm not going to say Buckshot is not in the car, and I'm not going to say Buckshot's in the car. I'm going to say right now, it's his car and it has been for the last year and it will be for the future as far as we're concerned."

"It is a great pleasure to fly Port of Subs' colors," said Allen, the 2001 LVMS Late Model champ and Rookie of the Year. "It is definitely a plus for Wolf Motorsports to be associated with someone of their caliber.

"Our main thrust this season is the NASCAR Southwest Tour. However, when the opportunity came up to run selected NASCAR Late Model events at The Bullring, it was too good to miss."

Allen is scheduled to compete in Saturday's Late Model season opener at The Bullring.