The 2024 season is almost around the corner! There have been many changes to driver lineups, sponsors, and team charters. But just when the NASCAR community thought the dust had settled, officials announced additional changes to procedures such as qualifying in the Cup Series and also some pit changes in the Xfinity and Truck Series.

While the new qualifying system of allotting grid positions based on the qualifying time within the group is a definite improvement over the older system, a change to the Xfinity and Truck Series pit stops left the NASCAR community on X engaged in a rather heated debate, with both sides trying to figure out the real reason behind the change. But before we take a look at what some of NASCAR’s insiders had to say on the matter, let’s take a look at what’s changed.

Here are the changes revealed by NASCAR for the 2024 season to improve cost-effectiveness and fairness

Among the biggest changes revealed in the NASCAR press release was that to the qualifying procedures barring races such as the Daytona 500, which has its own set of procedures. What remains the same is the 36-driver lineup being split into two groups. The fastest five drivers from both sets will continue to move on to the pole round, but the change comes when we consider the 11-40 order. Cars that failed to qualify from Group A will line up on the outside while cars from Group B will take the inside.

This works to eliminate variables such as track evolution, which could hamper either group in favor of the other. While this change serves to reduce unfairness, other changes focused more on reducing costs and thereby making racing in all three of its series more affordable for the teams. From introducing digital advertising boards in place of the pit-lane advertisements to reconstructing the towing procedure to avoid damaging the car’s rather expensive floor, the officials have truly gone beyond themselves to ensure teams can save a pretty penny.

However, while most of these changes were welcomed openly within the community, one change reported by Jeff Gluck became the subject of a heated debate on X regarding the reasoning behind it. Sharing with the community, Gluck tweeted, “Xfinity/Truck Series moves to a 9-gallon dump can for fuel. Holds two gallons less than the current can. Why? Teams wanted to have option for a smaller/older/weaker person being able to be the gas man/woman instead of spending $$ on a big pit crew athlete.”

The change was rather straightforward. NASCAR Xfinity Series president Wayne Auton stated that both his series and the Truck Series would resort to a smaller 9-gallon gas can in place of the existing 11-gallon can which was introduced when fuel tanks were 22 gallons. Now that the tanks had been remodelled to fit 18 gallons, it was only a matter of time before a change to match the capacity of two gas cans to the fuel tank was introduced.

But while any official didn’t explicitly mention this reason, what was mentioned was that the change was being introduced to allow teams to save on hiring a professional athlete that could carry the 90lbs 11-gallon tank. This meant teams could hire someone with a smaller or a weaker frame and still manage to make the most efficient use of the 9-gallon tank, which was now reportedly 10-15lbs lighter.

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What was supposed to be just a tweet reporting on the changes found itself lost in translation, as pit crew members and team owners stepped up to ‘correct’ Jeff Gluck’s revelation.

NASCAR insiders go toe-to-toe with Jeff Gluck on X over gas can change

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While Jeff Gluck was only paraphrasing what Auton had shared during the conference, it sent the NASCAR community into an unwanted frenzy. The tweet immediately caused a pit crew member to chime in, who wrote back, “Please let me squash this rumor. @NASCAR didn’t go to smaller cans because of me (a woman fueler) I handled the larger cans at 90+lbs. However, I’m not upset about having lighter 9gal cans but NASCAR did this so 2 cans equal the size of the fuel cells in the cars/trucks at 18gals.”

Brian Keselowski also had a few words to share that sided with InfieldJen. He shared, “Not super accurate. The fuel cells only hold 18 gallons and they had been putting 11 gallons in the cans because of the old 22-gallon cells. 4 gallons of extra gas weren’t needed. This will slow down the gas slightly and make it so you don’t have to have a top pit crew.”

A lot of users resonated with InfieldJen and Brian Keselowski’s rebuttal, with most of them chiming in to state that this was a better explanation of the change than what was provided by Jeff Gluck. A user added, “That’s way more logical than whatever clickbait garbage Jeff was spewing. That guy really went from being a respectable journalist to being a hot-take Twitter machine. Sad.”

All the seemingly unnecessary backlash required Gluck to clarify and state, “I wouldn’t really say it was a “rumor.” This is what Wayne Auton said: ‘It was a request from the teams to look into this so that maybe a small person or an old person like me can pick one of these gas cans up and gas the car.’”

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While both sides were seemingly split behind the reasoning behind NASCAR’s gas can change, do you think things went too far on X over a rather minor change?