Track Smack: Caution no means to this end

1. Should NASCAR have thrown the caution on the final lap?

Dave Rodman: Of course. The real question is, should it have thrown it as soon as the multi-car wreck started, or after it took three or four seconds to see what was developing?

Ryan Smithson: NASCAR came back and said it was a final-lap issue, which is sad. I need to go back and look at the tape from Talladega last year, when the same issue occurred -- a last-lap crash on a plate track.

David Caraviello: It's crazy to think that cars were banging off that inside wall and no caution was being thrown. But everything in this sport is a judgment call. Everything is done on a case-by-case basis. Precedents don't matter.

Ryan Smithson: You got me there, David. My argument means nothing, I guess.

Dave Rodman: This is why, in some respects, NASCAR is struggling to attain the level of a true professional sport. Then again, you could argue that football, basketball and baseball aren't 100 percent consistent, either.

Ryan Smithson: Baseball is never consistent. Wade Boggs was never saddled with a huge strike zone. It is a case-by-case basis there, too.

Dave Rodman: I am not gonna take the time, though someone certainly could, to see how much time elapsed between the start of the previous six cautions and when the yellow rag dropped.

David Caraviello: They would have had to go back to a replay. Do you determine the caution should have come out when the first car started wiggling? When the first two made contact?

Dave Rodman: The problem is, judgments such as the one exhibited on the last quarter-lap Sunday call into question favoritism and impropriety -- and I think it was none of that. It was just a bad decision -- and an inconsistent one.

David Caraviello: And who's ahead at that exact point? There would have been as much controversy as there is now.

Dave Rodman: Part of the controversy comes, again, from the alleged stand NASCAR's made on safety. If safety is at the root of the "no racing back" dictate, and for safety's sake there's only one shot at a GWC -- you can't ignore that because you're gonna have a great race to the line in the Daytona 500.

Ryan Smithson: Has there been a man with more on-track disappointment as Mark Martin? Geez. NASCAR would have had a great public relations coup with a Mark Martin victory. (Continued)