NASCAR says teams can't flare sideskirts in 2015

Sprint Cup Series cars won't have flared sideskirts in 2015.

During NASCAR's "State of the Sport" presentation on Monday, the sanctioning body said that teams that manipulate the sideskirts on cars during pit stops would be asked to undo the changes. Last season, teams had figured out that flaring out the sideskirts on the cars towards the rear tires created more downforce, almost like a parachute effect.

"As many of you know we deliberately decided against any changes near the end of last season, so in 2015, teams manipulating the fenders or flares during a race will be asked to come back down pit road, and we will use any means possible to police that; particularly, though, our new pit road officiating system," NASCAR Vice President of Racing Development Steve O'Donnell said. "Again, we'll look at that through video and any means possible during the race season."

Pit stops will be officiated with a new video officiating system instead of by officials watching each pit stop just feet from the cars. Eight officials will get video from 45 cameras.

From the Sporting News:

The official can then rewind the video, if needed, to make the final call and radio any violations to race control, which will be heard by fans and teams scanning the NASCAR channel. Once the pit stop has been ruled on, video of the next pit stop in the queue will go to the first official available — with pit stops that have potential violations viewed first.

When there are more than eight pit stops going on at one time, some of the stops would not be officiated in real time. Instead, officials would review a video of the stop. NASCAR says that, at most, 14-15 cars typically pit at one time.

NASCAR hopes for better pit road officiating accuracy with the new system.

CEO Brian France said that NASCAR will not change the Chase for 2015. (Cue the jokes that it's not due to be changed until either 2016 or 2017, as it's been changed every 2.75 years) O'Donnell said that the sanctioning body hopes to have the guidelines of 2016 rules package to teams by the All-Star race in May.

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