Talladega Delivers ‘The Biggest of The Big Ones’ and another Rulebook Controversy

October 6, 2024 Greg Engle 2024 Playoffs, Main Page, Top Stories 0


Sharing is caring

It was a moment at Talladega that made NASCAR history, much to the chagrin of Cup Series teams, and reignited the debate over who gets to stay in the race. Sunday’s event featured a staggering 66 lead changes, but the real showstopper came with five laps to go: the biggest crash in NASCAR history, involving 23 cars. The biggest of the Big Ones.

The chaos began when Austin Cindric, leading the pack, slowed entering Turn 3. Chris Buescher bumped him from behind, triggering a chain reaction that wiped out a third of the field. Playoff contenders like Joey Logano, Tyler Reddick, and Cindric were left with a close-up view of the infield grass as their cars were towed away.

“I just got turned at the front of the field,” Cindric said. “Unfortunately, that’s how Daytona ended for us and I think what that says is we’ve got really fast race cars and great execution. As the leader, I was trying to be as predictable as possible as far as taking pushes and it’s just a real shame. I don’t really feel like doing a whole lot of complaining about what happened or whose fault it is, it doesn’t really matter.”

Emerging from the wreckage, relatively unscathed, were William Byron, Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell, and Denny Hamlin. Cindric, meanwhile, shrugged off the disaster, saying, “I just got turned at the front of the field. It’s a real shame, but complaining won’t change a thing.”

With four laps remaining, NASCAR threw the red flag and brought the action to a standstill for just over 8 minutes while they cleared the debris and tried to untangle the mess. Chase Elliott and Chase Briscoe, both sporting damage that would make a demolition derby proud, pleaded with officials to stay in the race, hoping to keep their Playoff chances alive.

Eventually, NASCAR allowed their cars to be towed back to the pits, where crews tried to patch them up. But one can only imagine this didn’t sit well with a couple of drivers who had seen their own hopes snuffed out by similar situations. Josh Berry and Ryan Blaney were notably unhappy, having faced their own early exits this season due to damaged cars that were deemed unworthy of a second chance.

Blaney, who found himself parked after a crash at Watkins Glen left his steering column broken, fumed on that Sunday, “They didn’t give us a chance to fix it! They said we were done because I couldn’t drive it back to the pit box. But come on, if you’ve got four flats, you get towed back. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Josh Berry surely had that same frustration after being towed at Kansas last week, his car barely drivable thanks to a shredded set of tires. For both drivers, it was a bitter pill to swallow, made worse by watching Briscoe and Elliott get a lifeline at Talladega.

NASCAR official Brad Moran tried to clarify the situation on Tuesday on SiriusXM, explaining that while the rules haven’t changed, the interpretation can seem inconsistent.

“The rule hasn’t changed, but it certainly can give a different view when it happens and it’s unfortunate,” Moran told SiriusXM. “But the 4, the 16, 21, and 84 were all involved in a wreck on the backstretch. The hit was hard enough on the 4 to lift the car off the ground, slam it down on the ground. And by the way, the IDR (incident) recorder did go off. So it was a significant incident that the 4 was in. If he couldn’t drive that car back, it was out due to DVP (Damaged Vehicle Policy). We don’t inspect it, obviously, on the site of the track. We haven’t got that ability. But the indicator is, you drive it back, you’re good.

“If, however, he just spun and had four flat tires, he would have been towed to pit road under the flat tire recovery program. But it’s really clear on our recovery program and our DVP that if you’re involved in an incident, you have to be able to get your vehicle back to pit road. If it’s just sitting there (with) flat tires, you spun out — we’ll even give you (if you had) a light scuff — that would be one thing. That vehicle would have been towed in.”

With the Talladega wreck bringing these issues back to the forefront, it’s safe to say Moran might need to sharpen his talking points for another round of driver frustrations this week. As for the rest of us, we’re left wondering if there’s a rulebook somewhere that even NASCAR understands.

Meanwhile, Elliott was scored 29th Sunday, Briscoe 30th. Elliott leaves Talladega just 13 points above the cutline, Briscoe at the bottom of the pile minus 32.

 

Greg Engle
Latest posts by Greg Engle (see all)

Subscribe to our daily NASCAR headlines, CLICK HERE!