A NASCAR executive noted that while “one failure is too many’’ with the new air guns, he downplayed the notion as air guns being the leading story from Sunday’s Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway won by Kevin Harvick.
Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer, addressed the issue of air guns on “The Morning Drive” Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“First of all, I wouldn’t assess the race as that’s the leading story by any means,’’ O’Donnell said. “Air gun issues have been part of the sport forever. Let me dispel the myth that there never has been a failure. I think that Larry (McReynolds) said that very well during the (Fox) broadcast.
“I believe that we had one that we’re looking into on the Cup side with the 19 car (Daniel Suarez) that we’re looking at. We don’t view an air gun issue like on the 4 car (Harvick) where the gun actually works on the pit stop and then has an issue.
“I think we’re making a lot out of this, which I know fans want to do. I’ve never heard pit guns talked about in the past, which is fair when there’s been failures. It’s new. Paoli manufactures the guns, worked with the teams to put this in place.
“We’re working through it as I said last week. One failure is too many, but again I think it’s something we’re focused on getting them all right and the teams have been great in doing that and will continue to do so and happy that Harvick was able to go out there and dominate and put on a great show, and I think it’s something that we’re going to work on but not the focus of every race for sure.’’
Suarez expressed his frustration with the new air guns after the race.
It’s hard to explain the amount of people that work so hard to get sponsors, go to the race track, make race cars go fast, perform well in the race, then at the end of the day have an issue with something out of your control.... that’s frustrating. https://t.co/lWdT33RNus
— Daniel Suárez (@Daniel_SuarezG) March 5, 2018