NASCAR: Why A New Rule On Seatbelts Is Necessary

In Monday’s race Jeff Gordon had to run more than 20 laps without having his seatbelt properly attached inside of the car. NASCAR should now consider adding some seatbelt-related rules before something like this happens again.

With all the crazy events that took place during yesterday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway, one important factor went under the radar and did not receive enough attention. I am referring to Jeff Gordon dropping back on a restart to try to get his seatbelt tight again after it had unfastened. He then looked to have gotten it back in place but the problem instead continued until he could pit under caution to fix it 27 laps later!

In my opinion this is inadmissible. Inadmissible in two ways: on one hand, with the super high level of technology reached by this sport and with all the safety innovations in the cars and inside the racetracks, such a simple but yet very dangerous issue should not happen. On the other hand, and this is the fact that I want to focus on the most, in case a problem of this type happens NASCAR should definitely have a rule to force the drivers and crews to fix the issue immediately.

We well know how high the level of the competition in NASCAR is and how every little opportunity counts in order to have good results. Even for a top-level team good results are not easy to get in a sport in which at least the first 15 drivers can have a shot at the win under normal circumstances. That’s why sometimes they sacrifice safety for the results. This is exactly the case of Gordon who preferred running more than 20 laps in a precarious and possibly dangerous position rather than pitting under green for repairs. Had he pitted he would have lost a lap and his race would have been over.

Results are the priorities of all race teams and you cannot really blame them for giving more importance to results than safety. They are just doing their job of trying to win in order to give visibility to their sponsors and earn money to further improve the performances of the team. It is someone else’s job to make sure that all the teams do not step over the line regarding safety. It is NASCAR’s job to do so. Safety has always been a priority for NASCAR and they have often proved to be open to changes and improvements when something bad happens. This time they should make improvements to the rulebook before something bad happens. To have the seatbelts get undone by themselves is not as rare as we might think. Part-time NASCAR Xfinity Series driver Charles Lewandoski weighed in on this topic on twitter:

NASCAR should definitely introduce a new rule regarding this problem before it happens again. It is not admissible to leave someone out there racing for an entire green flag run without seatbelts. They should force a driver with this kind of issue to come immediately to pit road to fix it. The team in question would obviously lose one or more laps to the leaders, but there is too much at stake when something like that happens at 170 mph.

Knowing that no race team would take the tough decision of ruining a driver’s race by calling them to the pit area, it should be NASCAR’s responsibility to make them do it through a modification of the rulebook. It is not the first time that something like this happens and it is not going to be the last, so I expect and hope that some rules will be added in the near future.