NASCAR issued its rules bulletin for 2025 addressing some issues that affected the sport in 2024
NASCAR competition officials released an update to the sport’s rule book on Friday, outlining a number of rule changes ahead of the 2025 season. The rule changes addressed multiple issues that arose during the 2024 season, while also ensuring a spot in the field for “world class” drivers in select circumstances.
The notable rule changes are as follows:
- NASCAR has overhauled the sport’s Damaged Vehicle Policy, which will now permit damaged cars to go to the garage for repairs instead of being eliminated from the race outright. When the seven-minute time limit (eight minutes at Atlanta Motor Speedway) for crash repairs on pit road expires, teams will now be required to go to the garage where there will be no time limit for repair work. Damaged vehicles that are either driven or towed to the garage will no longer be automatically out of the race, but any vehicles that cannot be driven back to pit road for any reason will now be towed to the garage first.
The revision to the Damaged Vehicle Policy comes after multiple incidents last year in which cars that could not be driven to pit road were eliminated from races even though they were otherwise repairable, and in some cases even undamaged.
- If NASCAR grants a driver who skips a race a playoff-waiver for non-permissible reasons (medical absence/birth of child/family emergency/age restrictions), that driver will forfeit all past and future playoff points for the rest of the regular season. Should the driver in question qualify for the playoffs, they will start with the baseline 2,000 points in the reset standings.
This revision offers more clarity in certain situations where a driver misses a race, such as last May when Kyle Larson missed the Coca-Cola 600 due to weather delays complicating a prior commitment to race in the Indianapolis 500 on the same day.
- NASCAR has adjusted rulebook wording on race manipulation and also clarified a penalty structure for rule violations by the sport’s Original Equipment Manufacturers (Chevrolet, Ford, Toyota). Infractions by OEMs may result in a loss of manufacturer points, a reduction in wind tunnel testing time and/or computational fluid dynamics (CFD) test runs.
These changes address the end of last fall’s playoff elimination race at Martinsville Speedway, in which Chevrolet and Toyota drivers acted on OEM orders to manipulate the outcome of the race. Bubba Wallace appeared to tank his position on the final lap to help fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell make the Championship 4, while Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon formed a blockade to prevent other drivers from passing fellow Chevy driver William Byron.
- NASCAR has introduced an Open Exemption Provisional, which will create a 41st starting spot for a special entrant in certain situations where more than 40 cars are entered in a race. Similar to a “Promoter’s Provisional” used in grassroots level racing, the provisional will guarantee a starting spot to eligible drivers who are significantly accomplished on a case-by-case basis.
Should a driver and team be granted an Open Exemption Provisional, they will not be eligible for points, prize money, or any other benefit of their finishing position. NASCAR has presented the first Open Exemption Provisional to four-time Indianapolis 500 champion Helio Castroneves, who will make his NASCAR debut in February’s Daytona 500 driving for Trackhouse Racing.
- All NASCAR suspensions as a result of technical penalties can now be deferred without appeal to the next race following issuance. All other penalties (behavioral, etc.) will remain effective immediately.
In addition, NASCAR has formally added changes to practice and qualifying in 2025 to the rule book after previously announcing expanded practice time and simpler rules to setting the starting lineup. While no changes to NASCAR’s playoff system were announced — amid criticism of the format after Joey Logano won the 2024 championship despite having one of the worst statistical seasons of any Cup champion in history — Jeff Gluck of The Athletic reported that such changes still may or may not happen prior to the start of the season.
NASCAR will kick off 2025 with the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston Salem, North Carolina, on Feb. 2 before officially beginning the 2025 Cup Series season with the Daytona 500 on Feb. 16.
