NASCAR Potentially Adapting CARS Late Model Stock Rules

Update: Story updated to reflect NASCAR’s position that the called meeting is periodically routine in nature; requested for mutual understanding and dialogue over the always changing LMSC landscape and that it’s NASCAR’s responsibility to pursue a fair and economical racing platform.

NASCAR could potentially move towards aligning its Late Model Stock rule book with that of CARS Tour.

When CARS Tour hired Kip Childress last month, this goal was one of the first orders of business for the long-time official, creating greater synergy between the two organizations in the interest of growing Late Model Stock racing across the Mid-Atlantic.

In an email from last week obtained by Short Track Scene, NASCAR’s technical coordinator for touring divisions, Les Westerfield is working to schedule a meeting with regional track operators and their technical directors.

“We are looking at Wednesday August 23 … If you would, let me know if this works for you and if your head tech person will be able to attend. Your attendance would be greatly appreciated and would be beneficial to all. Some of the topics of discussion would be the state of Late Model Stock racing and ways to improve it along with discussing rules and possible changes for 2024.”

It’s a complicated goal because on one hand, CARS Tour is doing tremendous business this year, especially following its acquisition by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Justin Marks from series founder and current president Jack McNelly with cars counts routinely approaching 30 in the Late Model Stock division.

The growth of CARS Tour, has at times, been viewed as something that has taken away from local track participation, but the same argument could be made for the economy rule books for Late Model Stock owners in the form of Limited Late Models and Chargers.

There have also been instances where teams have been penalized in CARS Tour for running parts that are in compliance with the NASCAR rule book or in NASCAR races where teams were penalized for running CARS Tour compliant parts.

Most recently, full-time CARS Tour drivers Carson Kvapil and Landon Huffman were disqualified from the South Boston 200 for running a rules package that would have passed a CARS Tour inspection.

All told, these are the sort of conversations both NASCAR and CARS Tour are keen to have to keep Late Model Stock racing growing together with their aligned interests. At the same time, local tracks have catered their rule books to their racers for a reason and making them change to be CARS Tour compliant when they don’t run the traveling series isn’t something that obviously would make sense from their standpoint.

One track owner articulated that point in mass email to their peers after Westerfield called for the group meeting.

“Aligning our rules with a non-NASCAR sanctioning body only helps the non-NASCAR group. All of our car counts are in the toiler, and may not be revivable, and this alignment would just sink the ship faster. The argument I heard today was this will help your local trackw ith entrants, and it may if you have a CARS Tour race scheduled for the next weekend, but that’s a car or two to get ready for the next weekend and nothing more. It will just hurt what we have left. All of us fully understand that we must have a consistent Late Model team base to pull from our weekly shows.

…

“I am not trying to rally anyone, create dissension, or even suggest CARS Tour isn’t great (because) it is. I am not suggesting for a minute you should create an issue with Les or anyone else for that matter or even listen to me. I just want all of you to know what I am seeing and hearing and that I don’t see any benefit to us moving towards a common CARS Tour rule book.”

This track operator even suggested that perhaps CARS Tour should adopt the NASCAR guidelines instead as those teams have a great financial flexibility to overhaul their cars compared to the weekly racer.

“Any rule changes should clearly reduce cost and reduce complexity at this point. If they cost money or add complexity, I believe they should not be implemented. I also understand from Les that this is also an important part of the discussion, to reduce complexity (not sure about cost). I completely support and you should as well support ant rule changes that reduce cost and complexity because that will help all of us and Late Model racing … but they should meet both criteria however or again, they shouldn’t be implemented.”

From NASCAR’s standpoint, such meetings are routine and are necessary to evaluate the landscape of weekly series competition and economics.

The sanctioning body, as the historical proprietor of the Late Model Stock Car, says such meetings are important as technology evolves, using its R&D center as a resource.

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• Dale Jr. leads an All Star CARS Tour ownership group
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