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Pit road can be a very busy place.  During a round of pit stops under caution there are crews flying around, cars fighting for position, and tires and fuel everywhere.  But pit stops are hardly the busiest part of the race on pit road.  There is no bigger circus at any time during a race weekend than the one you’ll find on pit road right before a race.

Combine 43 race cars, every driver, the necessary crew guys, NASCAR officials, PR people, reporters, photographers, team execs, sponsor reps, team and sponsor guests, friends and family, and every race fan that can beg, borrow, and steal their way out onto pit road and you’ve got one hell of a party.

Inside this big mass of people and race cars you’ll see that some drivers draw bigger crowds than others.  And as you might guess, it’s the usual suspects.  Want to get a quick picture or Dale Jr.’s autograph before your favorite race?  Better take a number.  You’ll be lucky to get within 50 feet of the 88.  JR Nation is alive and well, and they congregate around their driver.  Most of the big name drivers will be enveloped by similar mobs.  Everybody is clamoring to get a chance to rub shoulders with NASCAR’s best.

Besides certain drivers, there are also certain tracks that are worse than others.  And again, they are the tracks you’d expect.  Races at tracks like Daytona, Charlotte, and the Brickyard always seem to draw the biggest grid crowds.

With so many people about, it can be a little difficult at times to get some of our race prep stuff done.  Tasks like laying down our tape marks for pit stops have to wait until pit road is cleared and cars are rolling around during pace laps.  And I bet the NASCAR and track security people pull their hair out trying to keep track of everyone’s credentials.

As big a pain as it can be at times, it can also be seriously entertaining.  People watching is one of my favorite race track activities, and pre-race is one of the best times to do so.  Words like “zoo” and “circus” often don’t even begin to describe it.

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You’re not happy when he’s winning. You’re not happy when he’s finishing 38th, 129 laps down. What do you want out of Jimmie Johnson? We should hash this out though, because he’s not going anywhere for a while.

Over on twitter and on message boards across the Internet this week people have been angrily asking why Jimmie’s car didn’t get inspected and then they were accusing him of not maintaining minimum speed during the race.

As we all saw last weekend Jimmie wrecked in the opening laps of the race and spent the next hour in the garage as his team tried to fix the car. He came out, I believe, 113 laps down.

I’ve read during the race Chad Knaus came over the radio and told Jimmie that NASCAR told him, Jimmie was under minimum speed, which was 33.27 seconds, or 162ish MPH.

Of course everyone (well maybe not everyone) is calling foul.

The problem is, NASCAR generally warns a driver before throwing the black flag. Here was his warning. I’ll be honest with you, I’m not 100% sure how exactly they decide to throw the flag, but I don’t think this was a situation that called for it.

TC and I worked some calculations and found based on the number of laps he lost between when he came back out and the end of the race, he was losing a lap every 14 laps (give or take). If he’d been the five or so seconds off the pace that would have been necessary, he would have been losing a lap every six laps. That didn’t happen.

And then there are all those screaming about Jimmie’s car not getting inspected after the race. Why would NASCAR have inspected a car that finished 38th, 129 laps down? I suppose they’re also advocating for regularly sending Joe Nemechek’s, and Tommy Baldwin’s cars to be inspected too (you know to make sure it actually was a vibration that brought them into the garage). That makes sense.

At the track the top-five cars are typically taken in for an inspection. Here is a good explanation of both the pre and post race inspection process. In addition to that, the engines of the top two finishers are taken back to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, NC to be inspected. The car of the winner and one randomly selected car are also brought to the R&D Center. Here is an explanation of what happens there.

So was it possible that Johnson’s car could have gotten selected? Sure. Did it? No. And let’s be honest, it wouldn’t have done anybody any good.

I’m not really sure where all the anger toward this team comes from, but I think it’s misguided. I understand you may not like Jimmie, and you may want to see him fail (that’s fine), but there is absolutely no reason to believe or suspect this team isn’t doing this honestly (at least as honestly as everyone else).

Likewise this idea that NASCAR wants Jimmie to win four straight championships couldn’t be farther from the truth. Jimmie’s dominance has not done any favors to their Chase format and continues to drive people off. If you think they want that you’re crazy.

I understand and respect the passion, but looking for trouble where there isn’t any is not a good use of time.