NASCAR will examine if there’s more it could have done related to calls that upset some competitors last weekend at Indianapolis, but NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer said series officials made the right decisions.
Sawyer discussed Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio the blend line violation penalties to Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski, the restart when Keselowski, the leader, pulled off coming to the green, and finishing the Brickyard 400 under caution.
Overtime restart issue
As the field came to take the green flag for the first overtime restart, leader Brad Keselowski was on the inside of the front row and had Ryan Blaney to his outside. Eventual winner Kyle Larson was behind Keselowski on the inside of the second row.
When the pace car pulled off, so did Keselowski, who was out of fuel.
Larson and the rest of the cars on the inside line moved up a row. That put Larson beside Blaney on the front row. Blaney was livid on his radio that NASCAR needed to put the caution back out and allow the field to choose lanes again since as the second-place car, he was now at a disadvantage to what had been the third-place car (Larson) after Larson moved into Keselowski’s spot.
Sawyer explained NASCAR’s decision to permit the restart to happen:
“That was a bang-bang call. Obviously we’re coming to green. We’ve already gone through the choose process, thinking everything’s fine. We’re starting to kind of focus on the restart zone there, making sure everybody’s in line where they need to be and then (Keselowski) pulls off. … (Larson) starts to roll up (to the front row) like he should do to get side by side with (Blaney).
“All of this is happening extremely fast as (Blaney) becomes the control (car), doesn’t get lane choice. … So the way it unfolded is the way it did and naturally it looked fine. We’ll go back and just see if there’s anything we would have done different. … Even if we, hypothetically, would have thrown the caution, we still wouldn’t have went back through a choose process. We had already done that.
“(Blaney) would have still been the control vehicle but would not have the opportunity of lane choice. So, I think as you look back on it, you kind of digest it now, again, still feel like it was the right decision to let it play out.”
Blend line penalties to Elliott, Keselowski
Elliott was furious on his radio after he was informed he was being penalized for a blend line violation after his pit stop on Lap 25 of last weekend’s race.
When Elliott exited pit road, he went on the acceleration lane. In the middle of Turns 1 and 2, Elliott’s car drifted out of the acceleration lane and over two painted white lines. He had all four tires on the racing surface.
Sawyer said on “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that teams are sent a video on rules and regulations for the upcoming event on Thursdays.
“As you look at the video, that basically says that you have to stay in the acceleration lane there … until you exit Turn 2, then you blend up on the racetrack,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer noted that NASCAR sent additional information to competitors “to help clarify any confusion that may have come out of the videos that at no point could you go up on the racing surface.
“So we felt like that we were in a pretty good place. Obviously, communication is something that we pride ourselves on and want to make sure our teams and drivers all understand, our fans understand, any nuances, if you will, around a particular venue that is different. We didn’t get a lot of questions back on the information that went out to the teams, so we felt like we were in a pretty good place.
“Take the two days (Xfinity and Cup race) of green flag pit stops, I think it was 77 total, 76 of them that were in the Cup race, all but two got them got them right. We’ll work on our side to do our due diligence to make sure we can clean up any miscommunication going forward as we always will on those types of situations.”
Brickyard 400 ending under caution
Ryan Preece ran out of fuel on the final overtime restart, was hit from behind and spun in Turn 2. He was on the apron and attempted to turn around to continue but stopped on the track. NASCAR didn’t throw the caution until the leaders were in Turn 1 on the final lap. Having taken the white flag, the caution flag ended the race.
Sawyer explained NASCAR’s decision not to immediately throw a caution for the Preece incident — which could have come before the white flag was displayed and set up another overtime restart:
“For our fans, our goal at every event is to finish under green. That is what our goal is going into the weekend. But there’s circumstances that happened on the last lap at Indy and I will go back to last year at Pocono, very similar situation with the same car, I might add, the 41. Both, we’re trying to give that car every opportunity to get started, get rolling and let the race end naturally.
“As we came off Turn 4 and coming to the start/finish line for the white flag (at Indy), it’s a two-and-a-half mile racetrack, so you still have a lot of racing that can happen. As the cars started to get off in Turn 1, you’re starting to get closer to having to make a decision. That’s our process. That’s our mindset. The same as it was last year at Pocono. I believe the 41 had spun there in the tunnel turn.
“Again, you give … the drivers every opportunity to get going but also the guys that are leading … as they are racing, you can’t let them race through a situation where you’ve got a car stopped on the racetrack. So that was our decision process and how we kind of digest that very quickly.
“I might add we have now had the opportunity for 24 hours, 48 hours to kind of digest it and I still go back and think our race director did a really good job in the way he managed that.”