NASCAR’s race control room was quite busy on Sunday during the Brickyard 400 and faced quite a bit of criticism from both competitors and observers in the days since the race.
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer was not made available to the media after the race but took three questions from NASCAR.com and also appeared on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday morning to discuss the three big issues that took place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
- The timing of the final caution after the white flag that ended the race
- The penultimate restart in which Brad Keslowski ran out of fuel, leaving Ryan Blaney as the control car but in the non-preferred outside lane, which led to Kyle Larson jumping a lane and taking the lead en route to victory
- The blend line violations issued to Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski during the first round of green flag pit stops
Ryan Preece ran out of fuel, and slowed in Turn 2 where he was spun by Chase Elliott, into the grass with a flat left rear tire.
NASCAR, which can be awfully inconsistent on when to throw a caution in that scenario, held onto it until after the leaders took the white flag, meaning the next flag would end the race. Preece had been stopped for almost 10 seconds before that point but NASCAR then called for the race ending caution as the leaders approached where he was stalled.
It resulted in a great deal of criticism from those watching, including Denny Hamlin, who had crashed out about a half hour prior to that.
“So, they had roughly eight seconds to make a call there, and they did. Austin Cindric spun through the infield at Nashville, gathered up, kept going, and that was instantly a caution,” Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast. “This is what we’re talking about.
“NASCAR, this is your inconsistencies that people gripe about. They have a right to gripe because it is just so inconsistent. You can’t decide whether you want the caution or don’t want the caution. That’s the agitating part.”
He’s referencing criticism from fans, like this one:
