NASCAR’s race control room was extremely busy on Sunday during the Brickyard 400 and has received numerous criticisms from both racers and viewers in the days after the event. NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer was not available to the media following the race, but he did answer three questions from NASCAR.com and spoke on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday morning to discuss the three major concerns that occurred at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The moment of the last warning after the white flag that terminated the race. Brad Keslowski ran out of fuel on the penultimate restart, leaving Ryan Blaney as the control car but in the non-preferred outside lane, resulting in Kyle Larson jumping a lane and gaining the lead on his way to victory. Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski received a blend line violation during the opening round of green flag pit stops.
Ryan Preece ran out of gasoline and slowed in Turn 2, where Chase Elliott spun him into the grass with a flat left rear tyre.
NASCAR, which can be quite inconsistent about when to issue a caution in those situation, held onto it until after the leaders took the white flag, implying that the next flag would conclude the race. Preece had been halted for over 10 seconds before that time, but NASCAR issued a race-ending caution as the leaders approached where he was stuck. It drew a lot of criticism from people watching, including Denny Hamlin, who had crashed about a half hour before that. “They had about eight seconds to make a call there, which they did. Austin Cindric spun through the infield at Nashville, picked up, and kept going, and it was immediately a caution,” Hamlin remarked on his actions detrimental.
“NASCAR, these are the inconsistencies that people complain about. They have the right to complain because it is so inconsistent. You are unsure whether you want or do not want the caution. That’s the agitating part.” He is referring criticism from fans, such as this one:
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