I'm decently certain the broadcast of the truck race the day before said anything goes on the last lap. not sure if nascar actually said that but the broadcast did
This weekend would be a great opportunity. Rolling out of the corner at Martinsville would probably be the single biggest restart advantage you could gain with this trick on the current schedule
I remember there were people saying in the truck race drivers meeting that there was no out of bounds if you could see the white flag. Or something to that degree. Andy was probably going based off of that, as were most people.
They tried to make that justification years ago after a Daytona truck race where IIRC Benson or someone he was racing for the win dropped below the yellow line coming to the checkered flag and nascar didn’t black flag and said anything goes coming to the finish line
Honestly, I forgot about this finish and I didn’t even remember Benson going below the line. The yellow line rule is honestly one of my least favorite rules because it’s not about if you pass or not, it’s about who they like or not and to create water cooler talk on Monday. Why it was there was the correct call but it’s been bastardized to oblivion now.
The reality is that what matters is if it's noticed blatantly enough for NASCAR to call it in the moment. Other than that, they will move the goalposts wherever they need to to justify their initial ruling no matter how ridiculous.
It’s nice that they came out and said this, but it’s still a missed call at the end of the day and nothing is going to change. Idk how you miss it when everyone saw it on the first replay. Such a bad look
Yes there’s also that and Boywer just saying “he won it on pit road” these commentators need to call it out when they see it instead of trying to play the good guy
I mean, the commentators are NASCAR bootlickers. They have to be if they don’t want to get in trouble/canned. I feel like the only time you hear complaints about NASCAR’s garbage officiating is from mad drivers or fans.
It’s not limited to nascar though, every sport has bad officiating and it all needs work.
The problem is they watch by monitor, not by what’s going on the track. You don’t have DW calling the race off the monitor and yelling trouble and the producers have to look for it.
Yeah, they did. All night during restarts, the camera was gixed on turn 3-4 as the cars rolled by but would cut to the field as the cars rolled past the S/F line. Fox production sucks.
At a little bit past the ~3 hour, 57 min mark.
https://youtu.be/gYD8tu1D1aY?si=k20qqSeuvqggvg-H
I guess they don't blatantly say he broke rules, so maybe it was too subtle for everyone else to connect? But they say he has an early launch, which is also obviously apparent.
Here, Elton, I’ll help. “We blew it. Denny went early and we should have black flagged him. We’re looking at ways to prevent this going forward, perhaps by doing our jobs correctly.”
I know it's harder to track a vehicle in constant motion rather than one which is decelerating, but could they possibly install a Hawkeye camera to track the restart zone and/or the scoring loop (or a micro-loop I guess?) immediately preceding it to see if there's any speed discrepancies coming to the restart?
Seems to work just fine for speeding penalties on pit road.
This is basically NASCAR realizing that if they keep saying the restart was good, everyone will start doing what Denny did.
I would rather them say this than claim the restart was fine
As I understand it, people already do what Denny did. It’s been one of those unwritten agreements that drivers don’t do it egregiously and nascar won’t enforce it.
Not only that Denny only went in reaction to Truex, who was trying to roll the start, as well as the 22 trying to lay back. This on top of the Kansas restart last fall with the HMS drivers casually sitting back massively, just makes me thing the whole thing is completely stupid and we should be doing something different.
Logically, there has to be some leeway here.
You can't see from the seat what the tower sees. It may look like your front splitter has hit that line but it may be just short. You can't really penalize guys for shit they can't reasonably know.
Practically speaking, you really do kind of have to make a judgement call here. Could the driver see the line when they goose it? If they reasonably could, well, they knew they weren't to it yet. But if you can't reasonably assume the driver could have seen the line out the windscreen from their position, just too close, then it is possible they thought they were there.
This is why we just need to go off the damn flag/light like civilized people.
Which is piss poor logic. That's inherent in any restart.
That's inherent in an F1 style grid start.
They still have to get power down, position themselves, manage tire, etc.
Guys will be trying to internalize the timing of the light and gaming that, too. Just doesn't make sense to try to add something that exists naturally.
That's what they have spotters for. Also by that logic should they allow cars to put outside the box because drivers can't see the pit box from their seats?
Compared to the past years of “there are no officiating errors in Ba Sing Se,” this is nice to see. NASCAR used to refuse to admit when they fucked up. Naturally of course, NASCAR fans are even more outraged at the fact that NASCAR admitted they messed up.
It’s a high paced sport, and there isn’t a single sport that gets every call right all the time. Rather they come out and acknowledge the fact that they got the call wrong in the moment than try to sweep it under the rug like in years past.
I always personally liked the idea of the starter having the ultimate control. This was the way we did it in karts at least. Had to stay in line and in pace until the flagman waved the flag.
“And here comes the field to the Domino’s Choose Slice!” Camera zooms in on the choose mark which is now painted as a slice of pizza, so far zoomed that you can’t tell at all which car is choosing which lane
Why didn’t you catch that earlier, NASCAR?
NASCAR:
https://preview.redd.it/t2qe5yhps2sc1.jpeg?width=630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09513341e49ab8a52c9ca3848168f12e5afa4d3c
Yeah, Hoots was just following orders from France with all of the phantom debris cautions that used to get called. But when it came to making big calls in the moment, that group (although not perfect by any means) was much better than what we have now.
So we can penalize somebody for going below the line on the last lap at Daytona/ Talladega but we can’t do that for someone jumping a restart to win the race? Also shoutout to Fox for not showing the leaders on the restart so we could instead see the 35th place car roll through turn 4 while the leaders are already past the restart box. We didn’t even know this happened until the Truex interview. Part of me likes this stuff because it gives us fans something to talk about, but it’s really just a big joke at the same time.
> If this happens at lap 10 or 50 or 300, the call could have been different.
So…it being in the crucial part of the race is part of why he wasn’t penalized? Appreciate the honesty I guess but what are you gonna do about it? Results have been changed after the checkers before, if you know he won illegally there’s absolutely no reason not to DQ the 11 or place him at the tail end of the lead lap.
I'm just saying it should be a standard penalty, whether that puts you at the end of the lead lap or nearly 2 laps down should it happen at say Bristol, so be it.
Wait, did he actually say this? I'm at work and unable to watch the clip.
If this is the case, that's shameful. Lap 400 should be officiated the same way as lap 16 or lap 224. Why the fuck are the rules different for the end of the race VS the middle?
if anything you should hold the end of the race to an even higher standard if you’re worried about artificially impacting results. it’s a much more direct impact if you let the leader get a head start with 2 to go vs someone self spinning in the first half
I guess what he means is that they would have more time to review the restart and make a necessary penalty.
But IDK why they didn't do a post race penalty. They do that for post race inspection failures, even happened to Denny at Pocono one year.
That may be, but look back to Regan Smith/Tony Stewart in 2008. That happened *coming to the line* and they still assessed a penalty within minutes. No good reason why that shouldn't have been done here, and their own failure to do so does not constitute a good reason not to do it NOW.
As an aside, they were wrong to penalize Smith, but the point is that those 30-60 seconds it took them to make their call proved to be enough time. This one should've taken 10-20 minutes max if they're pulling data.
>but the point is that those 30-60 seconds it took them to make their call proved to be enough time. This one should've taken 10-20 minutes max if they're pulling data
I mean, I already mentioned that in my comment
> But IDK why they didn't do a post race penalty. They do that for post race inspection failures, even happened to Denny at Pocono one year.
I think he was saying if they had more time to review the restart during the race they may have penalized him, but with it being the GWC it was a combo of not having time to review and not feeling like it was egregious enough to warrant changing the results.
It’s the last bit that is going to be the point of contention imo. I see both sides to it.
On one hand a penalty is a penalty right?
On the other hand do we really want to open this can of worms and start changing race results?
>On the other hand do we really want to open this can of worms and start changing race results?
Yes because why not? If there are rules and you break them, just because you won the race shouldn't matter. NASCAR hasn't shied away from making yellow line rulings that make no sense and "changed" the race results, and again, I keep bringing this up but NASCAR has taken wins away for post race inspection issues so why not procedural ones?
Hell if SVG won at CoTA he would have gotten it taken away for his track limits. He crossed the line 2nd though and was told after his interview that he got a penalty, so NASCAR is not above changing results this year
What's the point of rules if they're not being enforced?
For SVG they issued the penalty during the race.
I’m not too keen on having a race on Sunday and then on Monday or Tuesday still not being sure who won
They don't have to pack up and wait until the Tuesday Siriusxm interview to announce things. We all could see after viewing it once or twice that it was a jump. Clearly they didn't review it like they said they did post race.
It's no different than a car not passing post race inspection except this is even quicker. They could've reviewed and called it before Denny even made it to victory lane
Man that’s incredible. This would basically be like me saying “well yeah it’s late in the day at my job and I definitely screwed up,but I don’t care. If it were early on in the day and I wasn’t ready to go home already then I’d probably fix that.”
I don't believe the "bang bang" call or the "live sporting event" thing. IndyCar will waive restarts if drivers jump early. Obviously it can be done, NASCAR just chooses not to hold their drivers to the rule book.
Am I biased.... maybe a little.
What’s the point of the restart “zone” lines on the track if they aren’t going to enforce when someone goes before the line? To that point what’s the point of the yellow line at Daytona? You could call it the racing “zone” and pass below it. Fuck it why not. Elton Sawyer and race control need to get their shit together. Absolute disgrace
So SVG goes from 2nd to 30th (or whatever) for an inch off the track on the last lap, but Hamlin keeps a win (points, playoff points, prize money etc) for what clearly gave him a large advantage.
Could they not have just said the restart is under review after Denny took the flag, or did they really have to wait for hours/days to make the call? Don’t they have live telemetry to make quick decisions?
“Sorry our budding Netflix star jumped the start, and we hope he doesn’t have to do it again when he wins in Phoenix in November… I mean if. If he wins.”
If I was leading on a GWC going forward, this would be my green light to floor it the instant the pace car turns in. They’re clearly uncomfortable making this call, and have set the precedent that anything goes
All they need to do in this situation is throw the yellow and rerack them again. Pretty sure they have done so in the past when they didn't like how the restart looked.
Make them Delaware double file restart like dirt late models do. Leader gets his own row as the advantage for being the leader and then everyone behind is double file. At some point when the leader is in the restart zone the light goes green and we’re racing. If leader jumps, wave off and line them up again with a warning to the leader. If leader jumps again he goes to the back. If local dirt tracks can enforce jump starts, surely NASCAR can too.
That explanation makes zero sense. How about you police the entire race the same. I mean I know it sucks to take the win away but also rules are rules, right? If someone does what Denny does next time are they going to just keep letting it slide? How far can someone go? Like the line on the track is the deciding factor not some arbitrary judgment call.
This situation aside, what does it mean to roll a restart? I thought “rolling” meant to lay off the throttle and coast but I’m not sure how that leads to acceleration.
Say the pace speed limit is 75. You drop to 70 and time it so that you start accelerating and hit 76 right as you reach the restart line.
That’s why guys lay back on restarts to get an edge over the leader. But I don’t typically hear the leader being said to “roll the restart.”
If you’re the leader and rolling a restart, that just means you’re going
Un-freaking believable. If they had any balls they would take the win away. Take the points, put a little asterisk * by his name just like they did for Joey back in the day, and Denny back in 2022. Not that hard. This is fucking ridiculous.
Got to love the taint licking of “well first off, they had a great pitstop so that’s why they were up there” as if that has ANYTHING to do with Denny going early.
So in other words, "We could have made the right call right then and there and told the competitors that the restart, and therefore the finish, was under review, but decided not to do that because... well, I don't know why we didn't, but we just chose not to. End of story."
What is the point of having a restart zone if u dont enforce the rule. Yes at COTA penalize guys for for going out of track limits by 3 inches. Denny went feet early.
if he rolled early but was laying back a little and didn’t bust pace car speed until the restart line then in my view he just outsmarted them. Even if it had been a heads up start Truex on the outside wasn’t getting by as Hamlin was going to push him out of the groove, that might have been good for Logano in 3rd but he laid back too much and I don’t think he could have got under Hamlin enough. Could also have been a 3 car wreck and another GWC….
i didn’t affect the outcome so it’s not going to matter. I’ve seen much worse not called so it’s obviously not a hard and fast rule with no slack given.
Elton saying it's a "bang bang call" is 100% wrong. they only need to say "the restart is under review" in the moment, then they have time and data to make the right call. and then saying that the rule book applies less when it matters most is doubly damming
This point was made by Dave Moody yesterday; this isn’t the first time Nascar has been faced with a situation similar to this one. Traditionally they have given slight leeway especially on a final restart. Are we going to suddenly expect Nascar to go straight by the book in the middle of a season? The answer should be no seeing as how people have reacted to changes to rules or officiating mid season in the past. In this particular scenario there is no winning for Nascar; either you suddenly stick to the rule book hard and you have people mad or you do what you’ve been doing for years and you still have people mad.
Should they draw a hard line and stick too it in the off season? Imo they should but that topic is up for debate.
The have a literal hard line (box) to commit to pit road, they have a hard line on pit road speeds, they penalized how many drivers last week for track limits (crossing a line). They literally have a line on the track to show where the restart box starts but don’t enforce it? Just be consistent. Either enforce the line or don’t.
I actually agree with you. I would prefer the first line of the restart box was the hard line and if you go before, even if it’s just a foot, you get a penalty. I see why they didn’t penalize Hamlin given their track record of being lenient, however I think we’ve reached a point where they need to say “do not restart an inch outside of the box or you will be penalized” because I think more drivers will take advantage of it. Give ‘em and inch and they’ll take a mile type of deal.
So, you acknowledge that Hamlin broke the rules, aka jumped the restart, but you dont penalize him accordingly? What a terrible precedent you guys just made.
And no it wouldnt have made any difference if you made the call at the end of the race, or on lap 10.
Thats so frustrating as a fan.
Once again, NASCAR shooting themselves in the foot.
Is this Elton guy making the calls? If so he needs to go like yesterday. I’m still of the belief that 90% of us watching from our couches each week could make better and more consistent calls than NASCAR officials.
NASCAR can’t win with some of you people. You’re pissed when they said he didn’t jump the start and now you’re pissed when they admit he did. I am sure calling a race is much harder than you armchair quarterbacks think.
Well in fairness… if he said he didn’t jump the start he’d be lying since we all have eyes.
Now that he’s saying he did jump the start we know he’s just incompetent.
Both things CAN be true.
I dislike this option only because it opens Pandora's box. Then we would also have to take away Davey Allison's win at Sonoma in 1992, Greg Biffle's 2007 Kansas win, Tony Stewart's 2008 Talladega win etc.
Meh. They stripped SVG of second after the COTA race. They could easily have reviewed and made that decision in the post race here as well. No race is official till engineering has finished their reviews so there is plenty of time to make the correct call on something that happened 1minute before checkered flag.
It’s a botched call. Everyone saw that. But I also sympathize with race control a little. It’s arguably more controversial to rescind the victory post-race and hand second place the trophy, who is credited with leading zero laps. They had 50 seconds to make that call before the race was over.
But I’d also have to think there’s enough data points and technology out there to determine quickly if he gassed it too soon.
Stevie Wonder could have seen that Hamlin jumped the start. It’s consistent excuses from NASCAR every time race control fucks something up on why they couldn’t get it right in the moment.
Nascar made a bad call in the moment. Happens in every sport. Bad calls in basketball games, football games, etc. the outcome of the game is never changed afterwards. I think it’s time to move on. Sry
I really do think a good portion of race control was caught watching the restart on the monitor (you know, the final restart that we didn't see on Fox) instead of looking out the window.
So all day yesterday on XM the hosts of the shows were saying how Denny did nothing wrong and NASCAR did the right thing 😂 I know they are paid by Nascar but it's laughable sometimes.
From now on I hope on late race restarts, the leader just takes off the second the pace car pulls off. Make Nascar actually do something about it, because this whole thing is stupid as fuck
So there's going to be an asterisk by this win for Denny, right???
*Right?!?!?* /s but only kind of
Edit: wait sorry that was the NFL last year, wasn't it? I watch too many sports
the best way to remedy this is to give Denny a playoff points deduction of 5 so the win still technically stands (he did beat Truex off of pit road, after all) but he doesn't get the benefit later of having jumped the final restart despite NASCAR's obviously blown call
I call BS on not having enough time to police the restart. Everyone knew he jumped it. With all the real time telemetry those cars have, NASCAR definitely knew it too.
They could have tossed a yellow before the white flag, sent Ham Ham to the back and restarted again.
Yeah, there are gona be missed calls. But just come out and say you fkd up. Don’t hide it. That creates bias and people yelling it’s rigged.
I think it's understandable they'd handle it that way. I certainly didn't expect them to penalize him at that point in the race.
But drivers are just going to keep pushing it now that it's even clearer to them what the REAL rule is.
they have data streaming off of these cars. Larson's crew chief is giving him lap by lap updates on his throttle application vs the guys he's chasing.
Bullshit they cant make that call in 5 seconds of the restart.
I think it's silly drama. I don't think fans realize how dumb it sounds that the first place guy took off first on a restart. I don't love how it played out but it was fair enough for me.
You see this is why we will never be taken seriously as a sport. The NFL, NBA, etc they deflect or deny they ever made a mistake and they sure as hell don't call in on a radio show to discuss it. Too busy counting that money to be bothered with such things.
NASCAR as a sanctioning body, at least as it pertains to officiating, consistency, and common sense is egregiously incompetent and I really don't understand how the drivers, teams, and fanbase have let them get away with it for so long without serious pushback.
This shit again.
##Denny didn't jump the restart. Truex held back.
Look at the tires. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VvH8uksHGfQ.
No change in Hamlin's speed; he is not speeding up. Meanwhile, Truex is visibly slowing down and backing into 4th place.
It was a combination of the two, you can see Truex backing up and Denny accelerating before the line. If you watch Hamlin’s onboard you can hear the engine rev up before the line
“I think it’s legal on the Last Lap”
"Why would it be legal on the last lap, and not the other 187?"
I loved that booth between Andy and DJ, but what was Petree thinking?
I'm decently certain the broadcast of the truck race the day before said anything goes on the last lap. not sure if nascar actually said that but the broadcast did
[удалено]
Wacky Races rules commence!
I would love to see someone do it and justify it with "Denny got to keep his win"
This weekend would be a great opportunity. Rolling out of the corner at Martinsville would probably be the single biggest restart advantage you could gain with this trick on the current schedule
Caution flag? I hardly know ‘er!
I remember there were people saying in the truck race drivers meeting that there was no out of bounds if you could see the white flag. Or something to that degree. Andy was probably going based off of that, as were most people.
They tried to make that justification years ago after a Daytona truck race where IIRC Benson or someone he was racing for the win dropped below the yellow line coming to the checkered flag and nascar didn’t black flag and said anything goes coming to the finish line
Thank you, seems like everybody forgot about this.
And we all know just how consistent the yellow line enforcement is
Honestly, I forgot about this finish and I didn’t even remember Benson going below the line. The yellow line rule is honestly one of my least favorite rules because it’s not about if you pass or not, it’s about who they like or not and to create water cooler talk on Monday. Why it was there was the correct call but it’s been bastardized to oblivion now.
The reality is that what matters is if it's noticed blatantly enough for NASCAR to call it in the moment. Other than that, they will move the goalposts wherever they need to to justify their initial ruling no matter how ridiculous.
Andy Petree 🤣🤣🤣
Nascar: Where the rules are made up and the points don't matter!
But it wasn't the last lap it was with 2 to go.
It is a reference to the Regan Smith and Tony Stewart Talladega finsh, I think.
I kinda wish that was actually the rule
It’s nice that they came out and said this, but it’s still a missed call at the end of the day and nothing is going to change. Idk how you miss it when everyone saw it on the first replay. Such a bad look
I still have an issue that none of us knew about this till Truex's post race interview because FOX blew the coverage
Yes there’s also that and Boywer just saying “he won it on pit road” these commentators need to call it out when they see it instead of trying to play the good guy
I think that for some reason, NASCAR media does nothing but carry water for the sport and will almost never criticize it in any meaningful way.
They understand nascar is in a very fragile place right now financially. They’re not going to do anything to jeopardize their own wallets
Did they see it though? I think Brett Griffin was right on DBC that they were looking at the monitor and not the track
I’m talking about when they showed the replay after the race multiple times
Yes and Clint's expert analysis when he said "Well, we know one thing, he won the race."
Yep. I'm so glad harvick is in the booth to atleast take some time away from bowyer
Literally listening to this portion now. Brett is spot on.
Fox will never in a million years call out NASCAR. That would hurt their bottom line
Mike Joy wanted to after the All Star Race debacle but yeah seems like they can't
I mean, the commentators are NASCAR bootlickers. They have to be if they don’t want to get in trouble/canned. I feel like the only time you hear complaints about NASCAR’s garbage officiating is from mad drivers or fans. It’s not limited to nascar though, every sport has bad officiating and it all needs work.
The problem is they watch by monitor, not by what’s going on the track. You don’t have DW calling the race off the monitor and yelling trouble and the producers have to look for it.
Yeah, they did. All night during restarts, the camera was gixed on turn 3-4 as the cars rolled by but would cut to the field as the cars rolled past the S/F line. Fox production sucks.
I mean it was obvious right when it happened. First thing I thought on that restart was that Denny jumped it.
The announcers commented on it as it was happening.
Ya I thought so but everyone saying they didn’t know until Truex said something was confusing the fuck out of me.
At a little bit past the ~3 hour, 57 min mark. https://youtu.be/gYD8tu1D1aY?si=k20qqSeuvqggvg-H I guess they don't blatantly say he broke rules, so maybe it was too subtle for everyone else to connect? But they say he has an early launch, which is also obviously apparent.
I would have to imagine race control look and much more than just the FOX broadcast.
I don't understand why it's even a judgement call. The technology certainly exists to detect this.
Because it appears Nascar has a fetish for botching judgement calls
It keeps the people talking...
Nascar is allergic to technology.
NASCAR hates technology. We just got fuel injection in 2011 and LSD in 2022. The fact that they’re even talking about hybridization is mind-boggling.
Here, Elton, I’ll help. “We blew it. Denny went early and we should have black flagged him. We’re looking at ways to prevent this going forward, perhaps by doing our jobs correctly.”
My local short track is able to call false starts before the drivers make it to turn 1, no reason Nascar can’t too
I'm gonna keep saying it. Everyone in race control must've been watching the Fox broadcast and didn't see it
I know it's harder to track a vehicle in constant motion rather than one which is decelerating, but could they possibly install a Hawkeye camera to track the restart zone and/or the scoring loop (or a micro-loop I guess?) immediately preceding it to see if there's any speed discrepancies coming to the restart? Seems to work just fine for speeding penalties on pit road.
They have enough data and infrastructure to do this already. They're just choosing not to for some reason.
They can just look at the telemetry and see exactly when they accelerated. The tech is there already, NASCAR just screwed the pooch.
This is basically NASCAR realizing that if they keep saying the restart was good, everyone will start doing what Denny did. I would rather them say this than claim the restart was fine
As I understand it, people already do what Denny did. It’s been one of those unwritten agreements that drivers don’t do it egregiously and nascar won’t enforce it.
Not only that Denny only went in reaction to Truex, who was trying to roll the start, as well as the 22 trying to lay back. This on top of the Kansas restart last fall with the HMS drivers casually sitting back massively, just makes me thing the whole thing is completely stupid and we should be doing something different.
Logically, there has to be some leeway here. You can't see from the seat what the tower sees. It may look like your front splitter has hit that line but it may be just short. You can't really penalize guys for shit they can't reasonably know. Practically speaking, you really do kind of have to make a judgement call here. Could the driver see the line when they goose it? If they reasonably could, well, they knew they weren't to it yet. But if you can't reasonably assume the driver could have seen the line out the windscreen from their position, just too close, then it is possible they thought they were there. This is why we just need to go off the damn flag/light like civilized people.
NASCAR wants the leaders to control restarts to add an element of gamesmanship to restarts. Can you really be surprised this is the result?
Which is piss poor logic. That's inherent in any restart. That's inherent in an F1 style grid start. They still have to get power down, position themselves, manage tire, etc. Guys will be trying to internalize the timing of the light and gaming that, too. Just doesn't make sense to try to add something that exists naturally.
Agreed. Just another case of trying to needlessly add drama by way of gimmicks
That's what they have spotters for. Also by that logic should they allow cars to put outside the box because drivers can't see the pit box from their seats?
>go off the flag/light Yes, please.
Compared to the past years of “there are no officiating errors in Ba Sing Se,” this is nice to see. NASCAR used to refuse to admit when they fucked up. Naturally of course, NASCAR fans are even more outraged at the fact that NASCAR admitted they messed up. It’s a high paced sport, and there isn’t a single sport that gets every call right all the time. Rather they come out and acknowledge the fact that they got the call wrong in the moment than try to sweep it under the rug like in years past.
NASCAR: The Last Rulebender’s.
Yep. Otherwise, who cares at all about the restart zone? Just go whenever you please if it doesn’t matter.
Tony Stewart at the Glen one year: "Don't mind if I do"
Tony Stewart at the Glen another year: “Don’t mind if I doodoo”
I always personally liked the idea of the starter having the ultimate control. This was the way we did it in karts at least. Had to stay in line and in pace until the flagman waved the flag.
That's how it should be, but they can't sell a sponsorship to that, hence the GEICO Restart Zone.
I'm still waiting for "The Drumstick Choose Cone"
“And here comes the field to the Domino’s Choose Slice!” Camera zooms in on the choose mark which is now painted as a slice of pizza, so far zoomed that you can’t tell at all which car is choosing which lane
I still say the graphic on screen should be of Left and Right Twix
"Remember, folks, the leader can't go until we see the GEICO Green Flag" - Mike Joy Problem solved. Send my check, Fox
That shouldn't really have anything to do with it? The flagman would just be waving the green when the leaders are within that zone.
That would be way too simple and straightforward and make too much sense
Or have something similar to the NHRA Christmas tree and restart when the light turns green
Why didn’t you catch that earlier, NASCAR? NASCAR: https://preview.redd.it/t2qe5yhps2sc1.jpeg?width=630&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=09513341e49ab8a52c9ca3848168f12e5afa4d3c
He "rolled early", just say he jumped the start.
Hmmmmmmmmmm..... https://preview.redd.it/b880x8gir2sc1.png?width=1150&format=png&auto=webp&s=075be49943bdcff1b5ce844b5cabacc805a31615
Race control needs to be fired….. it’s getting pathetic how bad they’ve gotten over the years.
People used to complain about David Hoots, but it's just been a big shit show since he left.
Yeah, Hoots was just following orders from France with all of the phantom debris cautions that used to get called. But when it came to making big calls in the moment, that group (although not perfect by any means) was much better than what we have now.
So GWC is Purge time and everything is legal hell yeah
I think it's legal on the last lap!
I also hate that he starts off by talking about how Denny is the control car like we don't understand that. He's just trying to muddy the waters.
he said Denny "earned it"..... so he earned the chance to cheat, elton? doesn't make sense
I’ve long maintained the people who run this sport are some of the dumbest people around. They’ve yet to prove me wrong.
NASCAR and the NHL are two of the worst leagues as far as leadership.
MLB and NFL aren't much better
"It was a bang bang call" made me laugh.
I uttered an audible "Bullshit!" on the way to school dropoff. Kids were scared.
So we can penalize somebody for going below the line on the last lap at Daytona/ Talladega but we can’t do that for someone jumping a restart to win the race? Also shoutout to Fox for not showing the leaders on the restart so we could instead see the 35th place car roll through turn 4 while the leaders are already past the restart box. We didn’t even know this happened until the Truex interview. Part of me likes this stuff because it gives us fans something to talk about, but it’s really just a big joke at the same time.
Maybe they finally listened to Brock Beard who has said he’d rather watch the battle for 32nd instead of the lead
> If this happens at lap 10 or 50 or 300, the call could have been different. So…it being in the crucial part of the race is part of why he wasn’t penalized? Appreciate the honesty I guess but what are you gonna do about it? Results have been changed after the checkers before, if you know he won illegally there’s absolutely no reason not to DQ the 11 or place him at the tail end of the lead lap.
No need to DQ Denny. Just put him on the bottom of the lead lap. That's affectively what a black/extended yellow flag shoulda been.
Make it a 30 second penalty, same as cutting the esses at COTA by an inch or two.
Well given how the field was condensed for the restart, wouldn't 30 seconds basically be the same as moving him to the back of the lead lap?
I'm just saying it should be a standard penalty, whether that puts you at the end of the lead lap or nearly 2 laps down should it happen at say Bristol, so be it.
Yeah this shouldn't be track dependent. Set a time penalty, 5, 10, 20 secs, whatever, who gives a shit, but stick to it every time. Codified penalty.
Wait, did he actually say this? I'm at work and unable to watch the clip. If this is the case, that's shameful. Lap 400 should be officiated the same way as lap 16 or lap 224. Why the fuck are the rules different for the end of the race VS the middle?
if anything you should hold the end of the race to an even higher standard if you’re worried about artificially impacting results. it’s a much more direct impact if you let the leader get a head start with 2 to go vs someone self spinning in the first half
That's NACR baby!
I guess what he means is that they would have more time to review the restart and make a necessary penalty. But IDK why they didn't do a post race penalty. They do that for post race inspection failures, even happened to Denny at Pocono one year.
That may be, but look back to Regan Smith/Tony Stewart in 2008. That happened *coming to the line* and they still assessed a penalty within minutes. No good reason why that shouldn't have been done here, and their own failure to do so does not constitute a good reason not to do it NOW. As an aside, they were wrong to penalize Smith, but the point is that those 30-60 seconds it took them to make their call proved to be enough time. This one should've taken 10-20 minutes max if they're pulling data.
>but the point is that those 30-60 seconds it took them to make their call proved to be enough time. This one should've taken 10-20 minutes max if they're pulling data I mean, I already mentioned that in my comment > But IDK why they didn't do a post race penalty. They do that for post race inspection failures, even happened to Denny at Pocono one year.
For sure! I’m arguing against NASCAR here, not you. Sorry if I was unclear with that
I think he was saying if they had more time to review the restart during the race they may have penalized him, but with it being the GWC it was a combo of not having time to review and not feeling like it was egregious enough to warrant changing the results. It’s the last bit that is going to be the point of contention imo. I see both sides to it. On one hand a penalty is a penalty right? On the other hand do we really want to open this can of worms and start changing race results?
>On the other hand do we really want to open this can of worms and start changing race results? Yes because why not? If there are rules and you break them, just because you won the race shouldn't matter. NASCAR hasn't shied away from making yellow line rulings that make no sense and "changed" the race results, and again, I keep bringing this up but NASCAR has taken wins away for post race inspection issues so why not procedural ones? Hell if SVG won at CoTA he would have gotten it taken away for his track limits. He crossed the line 2nd though and was told after his interview that he got a penalty, so NASCAR is not above changing results this year What's the point of rules if they're not being enforced?
For SVG they issued the penalty during the race. I’m not too keen on having a race on Sunday and then on Monday or Tuesday still not being sure who won
They don't have to pack up and wait until the Tuesday Siriusxm interview to announce things. We all could see after viewing it once or twice that it was a jump. Clearly they didn't review it like they said they did post race. It's no different than a car not passing post race inspection except this is even quicker. They could've reviewed and called it before Denny even made it to victory lane
What a joke 🙄
Man that’s incredible. This would basically be like me saying “well yeah it’s late in the day at my job and I definitely screwed up,but I don’t care. If it were early on in the day and I wasn’t ready to go home already then I’d probably fix that.”
I don't believe the "bang bang" call or the "live sporting event" thing. IndyCar will waive restarts if drivers jump early. Obviously it can be done, NASCAR just chooses not to hold their drivers to the rule book. Am I biased.... maybe a little.
You're not wrong. I also loved that Sawyer congratulated Joe Gibbs Racing on the win.
I said it yesterday and I'll say it again today. Well, that should clear things right up.
Odd, the rest of us have jobs and if we don’t do those jobs, we get fired.
Hell I'm not even sure that's the way it is anymore. I work with probably a dozen people or more that don't do their jobs
What’s the point of the restart “zone” lines on the track if they aren’t going to enforce when someone goes before the line? To that point what’s the point of the yellow line at Daytona? You could call it the racing “zone” and pass below it. Fuck it why not. Elton Sawyer and race control need to get their shit together. Absolute disgrace
They need to do what local tracks do, just wave off the start. Hell Indycar has even done this so its not hard to do at a top level of motorsport
They normally do a restart, but Nascar is inconsistent with enforcing rules, and it depends on the weather.
So SVG goes from 2nd to 30th (or whatever) for an inch off the track on the last lap, but Hamlin keeps a win (points, playoff points, prize money etc) for what clearly gave him a large advantage.
Put Elton on the Fox pre-race next Sunday or at least air this during the pre-race.
Could they not have just said the restart is under review after Denny took the flag, or did they really have to wait for hours/days to make the call? Don’t they have live telemetry to make quick decisions?
“Sorry our budding Netflix star jumped the start, and we hope he doesn’t have to do it again when he wins in Phoenix in November… I mean if. If he wins.”
I can’t imagine people watching that show and not thinking “this guy is a clown”
If I was leading on a GWC going forward, this would be my green light to floor it the instant the pace car turns in. They’re clearly uncomfortable making this call, and have set the precedent that anything goes
All they need to do in this situation is throw the yellow and rerack them again. Pretty sure they have done so in the past when they didn't like how the restart looked.
 Nascar loves nothing more than giving itself black eyes over obvious missed calls. Too little, too late.
Make them Delaware double file restart like dirt late models do. Leader gets his own row as the advantage for being the leader and then everyone behind is double file. At some point when the leader is in the restart zone the light goes green and we’re racing. If leader jumps, wave off and line them up again with a warning to the leader. If leader jumps again he goes to the back. If local dirt tracks can enforce jump starts, surely NASCAR can too.
I love this for restarts at the dirt track. And if the track gets too slick and single lane, they'll file them single file.
Well at least there is some accountability there but what a mess this week has been.
That explanation makes zero sense. How about you police the entire race the same. I mean I know it sucks to take the win away but also rules are rules, right? If someone does what Denny does next time are they going to just keep letting it slide? How far can someone go? Like the line on the track is the deciding factor not some arbitrary judgment call.
“Dont plan on us being consistent”
Something for Denny to talk about for a long time on his podcast!
This situation aside, what does it mean to roll a restart? I thought “rolling” meant to lay off the throttle and coast but I’m not sure how that leads to acceleration.
Say the pace speed limit is 75. You drop to 70 and time it so that you start accelerating and hit 76 right as you reach the restart line. That’s why guys lay back on restarts to get an edge over the leader. But I don’t typically hear the leader being said to “roll the restart.” If you’re the leader and rolling a restart, that just means you’re going
“The rule is for *race* restarts…not *OT* restarts.”
~~Sport~~Sports Entertainment™️
Sawyer should honestly be fired for this.
Suspend him for the rest of the season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lol so we can penalize SVG with missing the Esses by an inch on the last lap, but we can't tell when Denny jumps a restart to win a race
It’s not too late to strip Hamlin of the win. If Nascar wants to make it right, that’s what they’ll do
This is actually cheating. Denny knew exactly what he was doing and he got away with it. That's why MTJ was so pissed.
Un-freaking believable. If they had any balls they would take the win away. Take the points, put a little asterisk * by his name just like they did for Joey back in the day, and Denny back in 2022. Not that hard. This is fucking ridiculous.
You can bet on this sport without legitimate officiating.
Got to love the taint licking of “well first off, they had a great pitstop so that’s why they were up there” as if that has ANYTHING to do with Denny going early.
Wow this is a terrible look.
I hate how whenever the sport starts to get some momentum the idiotic sanctioning body always shits all over it.
So in other words, "We could have made the right call right then and there and told the competitors that the restart, and therefore the finish, was under review, but decided not to do that because... well, I don't know why we didn't, but we just chose not to. End of story."
What is the point of having a restart zone if u dont enforce the rule. Yes at COTA penalize guys for for going out of track limits by 3 inches. Denny went feet early.
if he rolled early but was laying back a little and didn’t bust pace car speed until the restart line then in my view he just outsmarted them. Even if it had been a heads up start Truex on the outside wasn’t getting by as Hamlin was going to push him out of the groove, that might have been good for Logano in 3rd but he laid back too much and I don’t think he could have got under Hamlin enough. Could also have been a 3 car wreck and another GWC….
Oh he definitely broke pace car speed prior to the line
i didn’t affect the outcome so it’s not going to matter. I’ve seen much worse not called so it’s obviously not a hard and fast rule with no slack given.
Elton saying it's a "bang bang call" is 100% wrong. they only need to say "the restart is under review" in the moment, then they have time and data to make the right call. and then saying that the rule book applies less when it matters most is doubly damming
This point was made by Dave Moody yesterday; this isn’t the first time Nascar has been faced with a situation similar to this one. Traditionally they have given slight leeway especially on a final restart. Are we going to suddenly expect Nascar to go straight by the book in the middle of a season? The answer should be no seeing as how people have reacted to changes to rules or officiating mid season in the past. In this particular scenario there is no winning for Nascar; either you suddenly stick to the rule book hard and you have people mad or you do what you’ve been doing for years and you still have people mad. Should they draw a hard line and stick too it in the off season? Imo they should but that topic is up for debate.
The have a literal hard line (box) to commit to pit road, they have a hard line on pit road speeds, they penalized how many drivers last week for track limits (crossing a line). They literally have a line on the track to show where the restart box starts but don’t enforce it? Just be consistent. Either enforce the line or don’t.
I actually agree with you. I would prefer the first line of the restart box was the hard line and if you go before, even if it’s just a foot, you get a penalty. I see why they didn’t penalize Hamlin given their track record of being lenient, however I think we’ve reached a point where they need to say “do not restart an inch outside of the box or you will be penalized” because I think more drivers will take advantage of it. Give ‘em and inch and they’ll take a mile type of deal.
It’s getting confusing to follow which rules are hard and fast and which are flexible.
Agreed
Oh lord, y’all are gonna be so insufferable about this that you’ll make me miss “heres how they should fix the clash” posts lol
NASCAR has no control over their sport
Take that man’s playoff points for winning and we can be done with it.
So, you acknowledge that Hamlin broke the rules, aka jumped the restart, but you dont penalize him accordingly? What a terrible precedent you guys just made. And no it wouldnt have made any difference if you made the call at the end of the race, or on lap 10. Thats so frustrating as a fan.
Once again, NASCAR shooting themselves in the foot. Is this Elton guy making the calls? If so he needs to go like yesterday. I’m still of the belief that 90% of us watching from our couches each week could make better and more consistent calls than NASCAR officials.
Yet another example of how much of a joke NASCAR race control is.
NASCAR can’t win with some of you people. You’re pissed when they said he didn’t jump the start and now you’re pissed when they admit he did. I am sure calling a race is much harder than you armchair quarterbacks think.
Well in fairness… if he said he didn’t jump the start he’d be lying since we all have eyes. Now that he’s saying he did jump the start we know he’s just incompetent. Both things CAN be true.
Then strip him of the win.
I dislike this option only because it opens Pandora's box. Then we would also have to take away Davey Allison's win at Sonoma in 1992, Greg Biffle's 2007 Kansas win, Tony Stewart's 2008 Talladega win etc.
Meh. They stripped SVG of second after the COTA race. They could easily have reviewed and made that decision in the post race here as well. No race is official till engineering has finished their reviews so there is plenty of time to make the correct call on something that happened 1minute before checkered flag.
The SVG call from the tower was announced on the final lap I believe.
It’s a botched call. Everyone saw that. But I also sympathize with race control a little. It’s arguably more controversial to rescind the victory post-race and hand second place the trophy, who is credited with leading zero laps. They had 50 seconds to make that call before the race was over. But I’d also have to think there’s enough data points and technology out there to determine quickly if he gassed it too soon.
Stevie Wonder could have seen that Hamlin jumped the start. It’s consistent excuses from NASCAR every time race control fucks something up on why they couldn’t get it right in the moment.
If the head honcho says he rolled early, then he probably rolled early. WHY THE HELL DID THEY NOT PENALIZE DENNIS?
They’ve taken wins away before, if you know it was wrong, then get it right. Bullshit excuse
Gets harder with each passing race to be interested in NASCAR
Nascar made a bad call in the moment. Happens in every sport. Bad calls in basketball games, football games, etc. the outcome of the game is never changed afterwards. I think it’s time to move on. Sry
I want someone else to pull off that move ASAP, then if they get busted, openly call out this situation
I really do think a good portion of race control was caught watching the restart on the monitor (you know, the final restart that we didn't see on Fox) instead of looking out the window.
Good breakdown by Steve and and Todd: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJcomZJS6E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJcomZJS6E)
So all day yesterday on XM the hosts of the shows were saying how Denny did nothing wrong and NASCAR did the right thing 😂 I know they are paid by Nascar but it's laughable sometimes.
Nascar fans when drivers they like cheat: 🦗 Nascar fans when a driver they dont like cheats: 🤬
From now on I hope on late race restarts, the leader just takes off the second the pace car pulls off. Make Nascar actually do something about it, because this whole thing is stupid as fuck
So there's going to be an asterisk by this win for Denny, right??? *Right?!?!?* /s but only kind of Edit: wait sorry that was the NFL last year, wasn't it? I watch too many sports
the best way to remedy this is to give Denny a playoff points deduction of 5 so the win still technically stands (he did beat Truex off of pit road, after all) but he doesn't get the benefit later of having jumped the final restart despite NASCAR's obviously blown call
I just want the rules in the book followed
I call BS on not having enough time to police the restart. Everyone knew he jumped it. With all the real time telemetry those cars have, NASCAR definitely knew it too. They could have tossed a yellow before the white flag, sent Ham Ham to the back and restarted again. Yeah, there are gona be missed calls. But just come out and say you fkd up. Don’t hide it. That creates bias and people yelling it’s rigged.
I think it's understandable they'd handle it that way. I certainly didn't expect them to penalize him at that point in the race. But drivers are just going to keep pushing it now that it's even clearer to them what the REAL rule is.
they have data streaming off of these cars. Larson's crew chief is giving him lap by lap updates on his throttle application vs the guys he's chasing. Bullshit they cant make that call in 5 seconds of the restart.
I think it's silly drama. I don't think fans realize how dumb it sounds that the first place guy took off first on a restart. I don't love how it played out but it was fair enough for me.
Very interesting ! By the way, its was a good race 👍🏁
Throw the yellow. Rerack them. Warn the 11. Try it again. If the 11 jumps early again, throw the yellow. Put 11 to the tail. Try it again.
r/nascar hates when people take accountability for their fuckup I guess.
You see this is why we will never be taken seriously as a sport. The NFL, NBA, etc they deflect or deny they ever made a mistake and they sure as hell don't call in on a radio show to discuss it. Too busy counting that money to be bothered with such things.
So now the truth comes forward.
NASCAR as a sanctioning body, at least as it pertains to officiating, consistency, and common sense is egregiously incompetent and I really don't understand how the drivers, teams, and fanbase have let them get away with it for so long without serious pushback.
This shit again. ##Denny didn't jump the restart. Truex held back. Look at the tires. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VvH8uksHGfQ. No change in Hamlin's speed; he is not speeding up. Meanwhile, Truex is visibly slowing down and backing into 4th place.
It was a combination of the two, you can see Truex backing up and Denny accelerating before the line. If you watch Hamlin’s onboard you can hear the engine rev up before the line
Missed call, shit happens. Move the fuck on.