NASCAR is one of the most competitive sports in the world today and it is no wonder that drivers and teams are always looking for ways to outperform their rivals. Those means don’t always have to be the most moral ones. There have been several instances of drivers and teams taking the help of such methods to finish ahead of their rivals in a race. One such method was adopted by several teams during the 2014 Cup Series season and it did not take NASCAR long to ban the practice.

One of the more recent instances of drivers thinking out of the box happened in the penultimate race of the 2022 Cup Series, the man in question was none other than Ross Chastain. His Hail Melon move will go down in history as one of the most outrageous moves in the history of the sport.

NASCAR was initially okay with the flared side skirts before outlawing them

Long before Ross Chastain shocked the racing world, several drivers employed another means to gain an on-track advantage. The year was 2014 and it was only the second year of the Generation 6 cars in NASCAR. That year, several teams figured out in the early part of the season that pulling on the end of the right side skirt gave an aerodynamic advantage.

Almost every single team had their side skirt out by the end of the year and this often caused accidents on track. Kevin Harvick’s on-board camera in the Texas fall race clearly showed that the side skirt sticking out of Brad Keselowski’s car could be what caused Jeff Gordon to lose a tire and spin out.

NASCAR initially did not have an issue with teams making use of this but kept monitoring the situation. However, as time went by, they deemed that it was much too unsafe, and pulling out the side skirt was deemed illegal from the 2015 Cup Series season.

Several drivers and crew chiefs weighed in on the side skirt debate during the 2014 Cup Series season. At the time, fans and the media had only just started seeing the flailing side skirt’s aero advantage. However, as per some veterans, the practice had been ongoing for years.

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Motorsports veteran revealed that it was an age-old practice and nothing new in 2014

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Jeff Gordon’s then crew chief, Alan Gustafson, revealed that the practice was not something exclusive to the Gen-6 cars. The veteran revealed how it was a practice everyone knew about. Ryan Newman was one of the people who echoed the Hendrick Motorsports crew chief’s comments. Most people at the time agreed that it was just teams and drivers doing whatever they could to win.

“I’ve been around this sport for 18 years, and it’s been around that long,” he said as per FOX. “I think the media is just picking up on it. There’s some slight aerodynamic advantages there. In the old cars we used to pull the front fenders out and the side skirts out. It’s nothing new, and I think everyone knows to exploit it. I think people are taking it further and further so it’s more visible and people are picking up on it.”

Do you think NASCAR was right to outlaw the practice or would it have made racing more competitive today? Let us know your views.

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