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Quick Takeaways from Chicago: That was an awfully quick yellow flag for the infield tire
Throughout 2016 we may have way too many quick thoughts for our post-race posts. 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.
• NASCAR was very quick to call for a caution flag because of a tire in the infield during the first round of pit stops in Sunday’s race at Chicago.
The tire rolled from a team’s pit box and came to rest in the infield grass as teams were heading to pit road under green flag conditions. Not long after the tire found its resting spot, NASCAR deemed it was a safety hazard and threw a yellow.
As many teams had not come to pit road, the caution jumbled up the running order. Most notably, Kevin Harvick fell a lap down and ended up 20th after being unable to make his lap back for the rest of the day.
[Related: Martin Truex Jr. wins at Chicago]
While we’re always appreciative of proactivity in the name of safety, NASCAR’s quick trigger on the caution flag did make us wonder. The sanctioning body has had patient tendencies during green flag pit stop cycles before, waiting until all lead cars have pitted before throwing cautions for debris. And you don’t have to go too far back to find a very similar tire circumstance where NASCAR waited to throw a caution flag until all cars had pitted.
In the 2015 race at Las Vegas, a tire rolled into the infield grass on lap 135 during green-flag stops. NASCAR didn’t throw a caution until lap 140 for the tire, making sure other cars had a chance to pit. Why? Well, because the caution would have jumbled up the running order and potentially trapped some cars a lap down for a very fluky reason.
[Related: Truex wonders about consistency of laser inspection station]
Fast-forward to Sunday, the first race of the 2016 Chase, where the running order (and potentially the rest of the first round of the Chase) got all jumbled up because of a tire on pit road. Perhaps the caution call was because Sunday’s tire was closer to the entrance of pit road, where a driver could spin and hit the tire. Or maybe it was for a different reason altogether.
But given the increased importance of Chase races, it’s fair to entertain the idea that NASCAR should have used the same patience it did 18 months ago.
• As we said in our race post, NASCAR’s call to action meant this was the second time in three Chase races that pit road scoring lines significantly alter a race’s outcome. Hopefully this isn’t a trend.
Over the course of a 36-race season, cautions during green-flag pit stops are inevitable. And in those moments, teams are going to inadvertently get caught a lap down or perhaps inherit the race lead or a better position on the track. There’s no way of stopping fluky things from happening.
But the small sample size of the Chase’s elimination format adds way too much importance to those fluky moments. Because Harvick went a lap down during that caution by a matter of feet, his whole race was ruined because of a tire on pit road. And now he can’t have another poor finish (without a win) over the next two races if he wants to move on in the Chase.
It is imperative to note that Harvick was in the position to lose a lap on pit road because he was forced to start at the rear of the field for unapproved pre-race changes to his car. But while that circumstance was of the No. 4 team’s own doing, there was no denying Harvick’s charge through the field was the most compelling part of the first run of the race.
To be frank, the charge — where he went from 38th to the top 10 before pitting for the first time — was a moment that NASCAR wants the Chase to be all about. A champion driver with a fast car picking his way through the field in one of the biggest races of the year. That run was instead negated by a goofy circumstance and the biggest story of Harvick’s race became his location on pit road when officials in the control tower decided to throw a caution for a tire.
• Jimmie Johnson finished 12th after he was running second before the race’s final set of green-flag pit stops.
He lost the track position because he sped on pit road. NASCAR deemed Johnson was too fast exiting his pit stall and the six-time champion was forced to come back down pit road under green to serve his penalty.
Johnson accepted the blame for the mistake after the race but still didn’t seem convinced he committed an infraction.
“I’m making adjustments and I was dumbfounded that happened,” Johnson said. “You can’t argue it. Maybe a mistake on our part somewhere, definitely a mistake on my side, but I by no way shape or form thought that I was speeding.”
Wouldn’t it be great if NASCAR had a public service like MLB’s GameDay app or StatTracker service that gave fans access to live pit road speeds and advanced scoring? The transparency would only help to serve NASCAR in explaining its scoring and penalty decisions and would allow fans to see just how fast their driver was going on pit road. There’s no drawback, other than NASCAR losing the confidentiality of its own data.
NASCAR officials occasionally show the monitors in race control that display where a given driver sped on pit road, but a service like this would mean fans could have that insight during every race. While NASCAR continually touts its social media outreach and engagement, a real-time advanced statistical service would be a tangible contribution to the growth and understanding of the sport.
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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!
