NASCAR Responds to Frustrations Over Brickyard 400 Race Control

NASCAR’s race control room was quite busy on Sunday during the Brickyard 400 and received quite a bit of criticism after the race from competitors and spectators alike.

Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, was not available to the media after the race but did answer three questions from NASCAR.com and was a guest on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio Tuesday morning to discuss the three big issues playing out at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

• The time of the last caution after the white flag ending the race
• The penultimate restart saw Brad Keslowski run out of fuel, leaving Ryan Blaney as the control car but in the non-preferred outside lane, leading to Kyle Larson jumping a lane and taking the lead en route to victory
• The mixing line violations that Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski received during the first round of green flag pit stops

Caution when finishing the race

Ryan Preece ran out of fuel and slowed in Turn 2, where he was spun by Chase Elliott and ended up in the grass with a flat left-rear tire.

NASCAR, which can be inconsistent in issuing a caution in that scenario, held it until the leaders took the white flag, meaning the next flag would end the race. Preece had stopped nearly 10 seconds earlier, but NASCAR then called the race-ending caution as the leaders approached the spot where he had stopped.

That earned him a lot of criticism from bystanders, including Denny Hamlin, who had dropped out about half an hour earlier.

“So, they had about eight seconds to make a decision there, and they did. Austin Cindric spun through the infield in Nashville, collected, kept going, and that was a warning right away,” Hamlin said on his Actions Detrimental podcast. “This is what we’re talking about.

“NASCAR, these are your inconsistencies that people are complaining about. They have a right to complain because it’s just so inconsistent. You can’t decide whether you want the warning or not. That’s the incendiary part.”

He’s referring to criticism from fans, such as this one:

Sawyer says every situation is different, even though his department tries to apply the same philosophy everywhere.

“For our fans, our goal is to finish under green at every event,” Sawyer said. “That’s our goal for the weekend, but there are circumstances that come up on the last lap … where we try to give that car every opportunity to restart and get rolling and let the race finish naturally

“When we came out of Turn 4 and got to the start-finish line for the white flag, it was still a two-and-a-half mile race track, so there was plenty of racing to be had.

“As the cars come out of Turn 1, you get closer and closer to the moment where you have to make a decision.”

Sawyer said that’s generally their philosophy.

“You give drivers every chance to get going, but also the guys who are in front, you can’t let them race through a situation where a car is standing still on the track. So that was our decision-making process and we had to process that very quickly.”

And 48 hours later he still thinks our race director did a very good job.

The penultimate reboot

When Brad Keslowski inevitably ran out of fuel, things couldn’t have been worse for Ryan Blaney.

Keselowski was the leader and had already chosen the preferred lane at the bottom, forcing Blaney to take the top lane so he wouldn’t run into the back of RFK No. 6 when he tripped under the green in front of him. Instead, it happened as he approached the green, and Larson was able to move up a lane to the preferred lane, even with Blaney in control.

On one hand it was all bad luck, but there was also a sense that Larson had skipped the restart. If that was the case it was super close, but Larson certainly had some speed momentum jumping up a lane.

Sawyer isn’t sure if there’s anything left to reevaluate after the event.

“That was a bang-bang call,” Sawyer said. “Obviously, we’re going to the green. We’ve already gone through the dialing process, thinking everything is in order. We’re starting to focus on the restart zone, making sure everyone is in the right place.

“Then (Keselowski) pulls away and (Larson) starts rolling up, which he’s supposed to do to get next to (Blaney) and it all happens extremely fast. The 12 becomes the control car, but it doesn’t get a lane choice, it all happens in a very short period of time. This all happened in a very short period of time, but in real time it looked fine.

“We’ll go back and see if we could have done anything differently because it happened so quickly, but I’m not sure. Even if we had given the warning, we still wouldn’t have gone through a selection process again because we’ve already done that.

“The 12 would have been the control vehicle, but it wouldn’t have had the ability to choose the lane. But when you look back and process it a little bit, it still feels like it was the right decision to let it happen.”

But again, giving Blaney the choice of lane selection in this scenario makes no sense, as the chances of him fending off the lower lane, especially with this car, are so slim. And that was the reigning champion’s bone of contention after the race.

“I don’t know,” Blaney said. “I could easily say, if the leader runs out of fuel at the restart zone, you should decline the start and retake it, because now the advantage goes to third. I’m getting screwed. I don’t know.

“It’s a strange thing and you don’t see it very often and it’s worse because it’s here. If it’s somewhere else, you can live with the top. Here it’s a death sentence and you’re not going to enforce it from the top, so of course I say re-rack in that scenario, just to make it fair.”

Violations of the mixing line

As for the pit road exit mixing line violations Elliott and Keselowski were given, Sawyer said they communicated extensively with the teams, both in writing and via video. He concluded that they did a good job overall with the calls, as only two teams were affected after those initial stops.

That includes a video sent on Thursday and an additional email with clarification on Saturday.

“If you watch the video, you basically have to stay in the acceleration lane coming out of Turn 2,” Sawyer said, “and then you have to merge on the track.

“Brad Moran and Wayne Alton (Cup and Xfinity Series directors) both sent additional text to clarify any confusion that may have arisen from the videos. They said you are not allowed on the racing surface at any time.

“So we felt like we were in a pretty good spot. Communication is obviously something we pride ourselves on and we want to make sure that our teams and drivers all understand the nuances and our fans understand the nuances, if you will, around a particular venue that is different.”

Most people in the industry felt the wording should have been simplified to say that cars could not go faster than the second white line closest to the race track.

Sawyer admitted that NASCAR will evaluate that

“We will do everything we can to conduct our due diligence to ensure that we can resolve any miscommunication in the future, as we always do in these types of situations,” he said.

Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.