NASCAR announces major Cup Series rule change starting next month

NASCAR has announced a new rule for the Cup Series which will come into effect as soon as next month.

As soon as the Dollar Tree 301 at New Hampshire on August 23, Cup races will have a single 50-minute practice session with no division into 25-minute sections or restrictions on who can run at any point during the session.

That comes as a stark change to the group-based practice format that NASCAR has been using for most Cup races, and also means that teams will be given an extra set of practice tires to allow for the fact that they can now run twice as long if they want to.

The rule change will not come into play at superspeedways this year, where there will still be no practice sessions despite a brand new aero package being introduced at Daytona, or at designated extended-practice weekends (see: the season finale at Homestead-Miami).

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NASCAR: New rule not a soft-launch of archaic system

NASCAR's Vice President of Racing Communications Mike Forde discussed the potential for practice changes as recently as Tuesday on the Hauler Talk podcast, saying at the time that officials still had some things to iron out with a couple of key stakeholders before anything could be made official. Those speed bumps appear to have been overcome in record time.

However, Forde did insist that the move away from split practices shouldn't be taken as a sign that the sport's looking to move back to having multiple practice days.

"I'd say that [multiple practice days] is way down the road," he explained. "Never say never; there are a lot of things – the old is new again – everyone's talked about that they're surprised that this has happened, so you never know.

"I think what happened here is that a large portion of the garage was supportive of a 50-minute practice. I think it helps get seat time for some of the younger drivers and mid-level teams that don't have the OEM support or as much of the OEM support, it gets them more track time. We listened to the industry and the stakeholders; it's a collaborative decision here.

"What we wanted to avoid was having another inspection period. It's still going to be an impound inspection, so what that means is there'll be an inspection period prior to any on-track activity, then a practice session, qualifying session, impound cars, and then race on Sunday or Saturday night.”