When teams roll into the garage at Daytona in a few weeks, they’ll be met with slight adjustments to the regulations.
NASCAR sent out a memo over the weekend detailing changes for the 2017 season for all three national touring series. The changes include limits on tire allocation (for select races), allowance of use of a driver biometric device and reduction in restrictor plate and spoiler size.
The tire allocation limit applies to all three series. The allocation in the Monster Energy Cup Series affects 13 of 36 events this season and each event will will have one less set of tires, sans the finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway which will have two fewer.
The events affected are the Daytona 500, both Phoenix races, both Martinsville races, both Bristol races, both Kansas races, Kentucky and Chicagoland.
Both Talladega races, Sonoma, Daytona in July, both New Hampshire races, Watkins Glen and the Bojangles’ Southern 500 will have an additional set of tires for teams, however.
All Cup teams will be required to start every race on the tires they used in qualifying.
Drivers in all three series will be permitted to wear a wrist-worn health tracking device. It must operate on an internal power source, such as a battery, may not transmit data or connect to the vehicle in any manner. Drivers may use certain models made by Garmin, Misfit, Polar, Samsung, Tom Tom and Jawbone.
The size of the spoiler (minus the plate races) for the 2017 season in the Cup Series will be 2.35 inches, down from 3.5 inches used for all but three non-plate races (which used a 2.5 inch spoiler).
For the plate races at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, the size of the restrictor plate openings will be reduced by 1/64th of an inch, trimmed from 57/64 to 7/8th of an inch. It applies only to the Cup and XFINITY Series.
The previously optional roof hatch is now mandatory for the plate races in both Cup and XFINITY.
All Cup cars must carry a roof-mounted camera assembly for every race, regardless if they’re being used by the broadcast partner.
