NASCAR issues wide-ranging rule updates ahead of 2025 season

Yesterday at 04:21 PM

NASCAR released a lengthy rules bulletin on Friday that includes changes to race procedures, additional penalties, and the addition of a 41st car to the Cup Series field.

The latter is one of the biggest items from the bulletin. It starts with the addition of an Open Exemption Provisional that will guarantee a starting position for a world class driver of another series who enters a race. NASCAR will add a 41st starting position if a team is approved to utilize an Open Exemption Provisional.

A team must make the request 90 days before an event. The driver and car owner that utilizes the provisional is not eligible for points, playoff points, or prize money. If the team were to win a race, it would be an official race win and go toward All-Star Race eligibility, but it would not count toward postseason eligibility.

In the case of the latter, the second-place finisher would receive first playoff points but not playoff points or playoff eligibility.

The most notable race procedure change pertains to the Damaged Vehicle Policy (DVP) in the Cup Series, which will no longer take a team out of the race. A driver will be allowed to drive or be towed to the garage while under the DVP and return to the race. There will be no DVP clock for a team making repairs in the garage.

The option also remains to work on the vehicle in the pit stall. However, repairs on pit road will still be held to the seven-minute clock (or eight minutes at Atlanta Motor Speedway). When the clock expires, the team must go to the garage to continue the repairs. There will be a penalty if the driver leaves their pit box to rejoin the race and the DVP clock expires before they reach the exit of pit road.

A minimum speed will still be required to be met when a driver returns to the race.

As expected after the controversy around the finish of the fall Martinsville Speedway race, NASCAR added penalties for manufacturer violations. Those will include manufacturer point deductions and/or the loss of wind tunnel hours and/or the loss of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) runs.

NASCAR formally added the changes to the practice and qualifying procedures that were announced in December. Additionally, the wording around the 100% rule was changed to focus on "manipulating" the outcome of a race.

The playoff waiver eligibility has also changed. If a driver misses a race and is granted a playoff waiver, they will forfeit all current and future playoff points that are earned before the postseason starts. The driver will begin the postseason with a maximum of 2,000 points.

However, there are exceptions to forfeiting points if given a playoff waiver. Those will need to be for medical reasons such as the driver having a medical reason, birth of a child, family emergency, and more. The age restriction for drivers not being eligible to compete on racetracks one mile and or larger is also an exception.

NASCAR's decision on granting or denying a playoff waiver cannot be appealed.