A 23-car crash created chaos at the end of Sunday’s Cup playoff race at Talladega Superspeedway, but the resulting red flag and then yellow flag caused confusion for competitors.
Josh Berry emerged from the infield care center after the incident and proclaimed: “All I know is that all those cars in Turn 3 better not get towed to pit road, buddy, because that would be breaking the Damaged Vehicle Policy.”
“Forty-two cars over there doing burnouts, slinking rubber all over the safety workers trying to get going. If you have four flat tires and you got to get towed to pit road, you’re done, right?”
That’s what happened a week ago.
But not Sunday.
Last week at Kansas, Berry was hit by another competitor and spun, flattening his tires. He wanted to be towed to pit road to get four new tires. Instead, NASCAR ruled that since he had contact and could not make it to pit road on his own, he would be eliminated due to the Damaged Vehicle Policy.
Brad Moran, Cup Series managing director, said this past week on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the decision “didn’t feel right or look right, but (the rule) was done correctly.”
Facing so many cars in Sunday’s incident, NASCAR’s action caused some questions.
NASCAR towed Chase Elliott, whose car hit the inside barrier, and Chase Briscoe, who spun after he was hit, to pit road and they continued. Elliott finished 29th. Briscoe placed 30th. Elliott holds the final transfer spot to the third round entering next weekend’s elimination race at the Charlotte Roval.
Briscoe said he was originally told to exit the car and remained in the vehicle.
“It was confusing,” Briscoe said. “We had 10 different stories of what to do between they’re going to do the air jacks and then you had to get out, then they’re going to push you and then they were going to tow you, then they’re going to push you again. It just constantly kept changing.
“The air jack deal, it got a little bit sketchy for a while because there’s like five or six of us that have the air jack (a device that officials can pump air into to help raise the car when it has multiple flat tires) and we’re all like trying to do burnouts and move and we can’t do anything.
“So they told me to get out. Then they told me they were going to push me. Then they told me they were going to tow me and then they told me to get out and then they told me they were going to push me.
“It literally just changed nonstop. Like every 30 seconds they come up to tell you something new. The team is telling you something totally different. The guys working the crash they’re at the mercy of whatever they get told, so I know they’re doing everything they can but definitely probably need to figure out just a better way to do that.”
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, explained how officials responded in trying to get the cars back into competition that could continue.
“First and foremost, our goal is never to put good cars out of the race,” he said, referring to cars that could continue. “When we developed (the Damaged Vehicle Policy) … that’s never been the goal.
“Based on our experiences last week at Kansas (with Berry) … we felt like, yeah, we probably could have made a different call there. We had a good car that probably just needed tires last week.
“As we went into this week, we wanted to err on the side of the competitor. Again, we don’t want to put good cars out of the race. We had a situation in Turn 3 where we’ve got 25-plus cars down there. We’re not sure why they can’t continue. We don’t know if it’s strictly because they’re in the grass (or) they’re high-sided. So for us to make a determination that they’ve got some suspension damage and can’t continue, that puts a lot on us.
“Once we got (Briscoe) and (Elliott) back to pit road, they made their small repairs that they can make on pit road and went out and met minimum speed. So we felt like we made the right call there.”
There also was the matter of when NASCAR changed the red flag to a yellow flag but the field didn’t move while cars on pit road could begin making repairs.
“I don’t think I’ve seen them turn the yellow flag on and allow guys to work on cars while other guys are just sitting there,” said Mike Kelley, crew chief for race winner Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
Sawyer explained what happened in that situation.
“We had all intentions to roll the caution vehicle as soon as we pulled the red and displayed the yellow,” he said. “The race director noticed some things that were still going on in Turn 3 where he couldn’t do that (get cars moving).
“… We had safety equipment that was still moving around there. So just for the safety of all, held the caution vehicle for a little longer. … We had some cars on pit road that got the opportunity to do a little bit more work before those other cars could get there.”
Sawyer went on to say: “Every circumstance is different. We’re going to do our absolute best to make the best calls with the best information we have in front of us.”
Sawyer noted that series officials will keep the policy as is the rest of the season. He said officials will examine the policy in the offseason, something Moran said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio this past week.
