Restrictor plates at Lowe’s

UPDATE NASCAR Nextel Cup Director John Darby would neither confirm nor deny rumors that the sanctioning body will mandate the use of restrictor plates at the October Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Tony Stewart and Greg Biffle each crashed two cars at Lowe’s last week, as two rounds of computer-aided track grinding — a process known as “levigation" — have made the venerable 1.5-mile track extremely fast. “We carry restrictor plates on our truck 38 weeks a year," Darby said Friday at Talladega. “They’re there for a lot of reasons, and if a situation ever creates itself that starts to look like it’s leading itself towards the direction that we’re going to have a tremendous amount of problems in the race … or something that we can’t predict or didn’t expect to see, that’s why we have the plates. … If we ever get in a situation where we have to use them, we’ll use them." Speed Channel

09/26/05 With less than rave reviews of the ever-changing track surface at Lowe's Motor Speedway from Chasers Tony Stewart, Greg Biffle and Mark Martin after a test last week, NASCAR officials are considering running restrictor plates on the cars in the October 15 race at Charlotte. Stewart and Biffle wrecked two cars apiece during the tests. After plowing his car at 170 mph into the Turn 2 wall, Biffle felt the aftereffects last weekend at Dover. "From the eye, the track looks good," Biffle says. But the tire compound doesn't work well with the track's new surface. NASCAR doesn't expect any relief until the track is repaved after the race. Sporting News/Lee Spencer