Quick takeaways from Pocono: Chase Elliott laments one that got away

Throughout 2016 we may have way too many quick thoughts for our post-race posts. So consider our Takeaways feature to be the home of our random and sometimes intelligent musings. Sometimes the post may have a theme. Sometimes it may just be a mess of unrelated thoughts. Make sure you tweet us your thoughts after the race or email your post-race rants via the link in the signature line below.

• Chase Elliott learned Monday how one ill-timed attempted pass can demolish your chances for a win.

Elliott might have had the best car Monday afternoon, leading 51 laps and putting himself in a position to be the first rookie to win at Pocono since Denny Hamlin did in 2006.

[Related: Kurt Busch wins at Pocono]

But Elliott immediately mentioned the move he attempted on Dale Earnhardt Jr. with 33 laps to go as a mistake he made that cost himself the race. Elliott was looking to pass Junior for the lead and got too aggressive in turn 2. The move meant he slid up the track and also slowed Junior, allowing Busch to get past both of them and cruise to the win.

"There were definitely times we were better than others," Elliott said. "I wish once we had taken a couple of those green flags after the cautions we could have got going and ran some laps.  That is not how the day unfolded, so we will take it and move on. Just try to be aware of the mistakes I made having a chance there at the end and not getting it done.”

[Related: Keselowski makes case for TV impartiality after hearing of Gordon's comments]

The "couple of green flags" Elliott refers to is the stop-and-start nature of the race in the third quarter when there were multiple incidents immediately after restarts.

We all know Elliott is going to win sooner rather than later. And based off how he ran Monday at Pocono, "sooner" may be really soon. He had led 32 laps all season until Pocono.

• Restarts at Pocono are always crazy. It's because the long and wide front straightaway at the 2.5-mile track allows for drivers to fan out in multiple lanes heading into turn 1 in the hopes of gaining a spot or three.

They're definitely exciting and fun to watch – since Pocono is so wide, drivers look for any and all lanes available to them. But don't fall for any exaggerated claims that the cars are more than four-wide on a restart, even if it looks like this.

The combination of the numerous lanes taken and the camera angle makes it look like the cars could be 8-10-wide in that picture. They aren't. Are there 10 lanes between the car on the far left and the car on the far right? It's very possible. But they aren't "10-wide" because there aren't 10 (or however many you wish) cars alongside each other.

It's an important distinction and again draws attention to the preponderance of exaggeration and hyperbole when describing the racing in NASCAR's three series. Monday's race was entertaining enough with its fuel-mileage tendency and varying strategy. It can stand on its own without any false claims.

• If you're looking for more perceived caution inconsistency from NASCAR's race control, you didn't have to look very hard on Monday.

With eight laps to go in last week's race at Charlotte, Kyle Busch slammed into the wall off turn 2. There was no caution, and Busch drove his car to the garage. The accident looked like this:

Monday, Busch slammed into the wall off turn 1 at Pocono in an accident that looked incredibly similar. It looked like this:

Busch's Pocono crash drew a caution (Chris Buescher also spun, but the listing in both NASCAR.com's lap-by-lap and the box score show Busch as the cause of the caution).

Yes, Busch was ahead of more cars in a smaller area at Pocono since his accident happened just after a restart. But he wasn't in the way and his car could have made it back to pit road without causing any harm to others just like he did at Charlotte. Oh, and yes, it came with 48 laps to go in the race rather than eight.

But despite those two circumstances, the perception issue persists given the striking resemblance of the two crashes. Especially when there's no immediate explanation for why NASCAR deemed one worthy of a caution and one not.

Near-instant transparency would go a long way for the sanctioning body. There's never any harm in explaining the rationale in a decision-making process. Assuming, of course, that the rationale is sound in the first place.

• There was an especially awkward moment during Fox's telecast of the race when analyst Darrell Waltrip was exclaiming "Go, Junior, go!" as Dale Earnhardt Jr. was passing Kevin Harvick.

Play-by-play announcer Mike Joy chimed in and said "Put down your 'tweeters' we are not cheerleading, we are just enjoying this."

Joy's acknowledgement of Waltrip's cheering – err, enjoyment – is an admission that people at Fox have noticed Waltrip's propensity to express his favoritism for specific drivers; Martin Truex Jr. being a notable one throughout the Coca-Cola 600 and at the finish of the Daytona 500.

And in the interest of fairness, yes, you can tell that Jeff Gordon clearly has a soft spot for Elliott, the man who took over Gordon's No. 24.

While it's also an admission that people recognize that Waltrip has been a bit overenthusiastic for certain drivers, it's also an acknowledgement that Fox may not have any plans on reigning in the behavior.

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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