It’s time to talk about officiating

     For years, well even since it first became a thing NASCAR has always had some interesting officiating. This has happened ever since it became a thing. The problem now is that the “grey area” in the rule book is being exposed to full effect due to the circumstances that come about during a race. Also the issue seem to happen faster than a rash.

        The issue I would like to go over is the spins or crashes under a green white checkered and what deserves a caution and what doesn’t. If it’s a single car spin or so NASCAR will give the vehicles a chance to continue, but the problem is how long will they give them before the caution must be thrown. This issue came under the magnifying glass on Sunday at the Brickyard 400 with Ryan Preece crashing down the back straight with 2 to go. He tried to get back going but the tires were flat and he had no fuel pressure and stopped well before the leaders took the white but the caution wasn’t thrown until the leaders got to turn 2, about half a straightaway from Preece’s stopped car. This is a issue because just under a month ago at Nashville superspeedway, there were two instances that saw a caution for spinning cars just before the leader took the white with cars crashed on the back straight. Could the size of both tracks made a difference? Probably, but I believe both incidents should’ve been cautions.

     Another issue I would like to talk about is the restarts. As we saw on Sunday Brad K in the 6 car took the choose as the leader but had to pit as the safety car pulled off of the racing surface. Many feel that the restart should’ve been waved off due to the fact that the driver who then was scored as the leader wasn’t able to get his actual choose option due to the original leader pitting prior to green. This allowed Kyle Larson to jump from row two to row one and get the best chance at the preferred line in turn one. I do feel this rule should be adjusted because it is a choose rule and when someone runs out or pits that sort of puts one line to a disadvantage. 

       My last issue isn’t as much of an inconsistency but an issue which is the amount of caution laps that are burned under stage breaks or burned towards the end of the race. I believe this takes away from the amount of time we get to see racers race and some situations that require an extra amount of caution laps should be red flagged. Single car spins where the car doesn’t hit anything or wall taps that in some instances don’t really damage anything should not have as many caution laps as they do when it’s towards the end of the race. Stage breaks also shouldn’t be as long when there’s no incident.

    NASCAR is a sport I will watch until I die but there are areas for improvement especially in officiating. Hopefully in the years to come these issues that I went over get figured out. Hopefully this Olympic break works wonders.