NASCAR’s rulebook is quite voluminous. And every time a new rule gets added to it, an overwhelming series of criticisms from the racing aficionados come flowing in. However, when NASCAR said in 2020 that it was implementing the ‘Choose Rule’, better known as the ‘Choose Cone’, the response was unanimous and positive. So much so that even Chase Elliott said, “I think the choose rule’s been needed for a long time.”
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So what is this ‘Choose Rule’? As the name suggests, it revolves around placing a safety cone (a choose cone) on the racetrack during the last lap after a yellow flag comes out, just before the following restart. Usually before a restart, the cars on the field line up in two’s, based on their current position in the race. But this rule gave them the choice to start in the high or the low line.
Previously, only the race leader had the option to make this choice. Now, even the cars in the back of the field can choose if they want to restart in the top or the bottom groove.
Say a driver is 17th in the race and is preparing for a restart. This puts him in the 9th row alongside the driver who ranks 18th at that time. The ‘Choose Rule’ would allow the higher-ranked driver, the 17th-ranked driver in this case, to choose if they want to restart in the inside or the outside line.
“(It) just makes way more sense to put it in our hands and it either works out for you or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t work out, then it’s your own fault and not luck of the draw and where you come off pit road,” Elliott added.
It took three years for NASCAR to make the ‘Choose Rule’ debut on road courses
The ‘Choose Rule’ was first used in the All-Star Race at Bristol Motor Speedway back in 2020 and made its return during the 2021 NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. But even then, road courses were not deemed suitable for the newly formulated rule.
It wasn’t until March 2023, when NASCAR announced that the driver-favorite rule would debut on the road course race at the Circuit of The Americas.
The rule that opened the prospect of making lane choice was also observed in the remaining five road course races in the Cup schedule being, Sonoma Raceway, Chicago Street Course, the IMS road course, Watkins Glen International, and the Charlotte ROVAL.
