Rules aren't always what they appear in NASCAR (cont'd)

"They didn't maintain pace with the pace car," said Gil Martin, Bowyer's crew chief. "We did, the 48 [car of Johnson] did. The 48 should be credited with second place right here. I mean, it's all about the points right now. I know they've got Victory Lane going on and everything, and nobody wants to see this controversy at the end. But I didn't want to see the race restarted after it rained, and I didn't want to see an open pit road when it was wet. I didn't want to see any of that stuff. But the rules are the rules. They've been that way. That's how I understand them. If that's not the case, then they'll come explain to me that that's not the case, and we'll see."

Race Video

Gil Martin answers questions following his driver's second-place finish at Kansas Speedway. But the 07 crew chief had a few of his own after Greg Biffle was declared the winner despite Clint Bowyer crossing the finish line first.

• Watch video: Left in the dark
• Watch video: Confusing finish
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Minutes later, Childress emerged from within the NASCAR truck. "They thought [Biffle] maintained a reasonable speed crossing the finish line.," he said. "It's their call. And Greg had it won if they hadn't run out of gas. They make a call. You've got to live with it."

It was an evening marked by confusion and misinterpretation. The moment Biffle slowed and dropped to the bottom of the racetrack, everyone at Kansas Speedway assumed he had run out of gas. But according to the winner, that wasn't the case. Yes, the tank was low -- but not empty. Because of the track's tri-oval banking, Biffle said, his fuel pickup wasn't getting enough gas. He was trying to save his last few drops. After his first victory since this past November, he wanted to do a burnout.

"I can go start the car up and do some burnouts in the garage over here, do some doughnuts if that will make everybody feel better about it," Biffle said. "I don't know what to say."

But it was Bowyer who received a congratulatory handshake from Gordon after the race. "That's your winner right there," agreed Johnson, motioning to Bowyer, seated next to him in the media interview room. Among the NASCAR press corps, there was exasperation. How could NASCAR reset Robby Gordon so deep in the field at Montreal, and then not penalize Biffle for seemingly the same offense? How could the same rule be applied in two different ways?

Because, as with many things in NASCAR, the rule is flexible. Maintaining pace, evidently, does not mean rolling at the same speed as the 55 mph caution car. It's something for officials up in the tower to decide. And unlike Montreal -- where Robby Gordon was stopped because of contact -- Biffle was still moving. In the eyes of race control, with the field supposedly frozen, that was enough.

"Robby was involved in an accident, so it was about getting back in line and maintaining that line," NASCAR spokesman Ramsey Poston said. "The 16 wasn't involved in an accident. He was maintaining his pace. That's the end of the story. The caution was out, and he was maintaining his pace. Robby, if you remember, couldn't bleed back in. In this case, the 16 maintained his pace and won the race. When the caution comes out, the field is frozen. There's no passing as long as he maintains that pace, and he did."

That's news to almost everyone in the garage area, who in the wake of Montreal believed the caution car speed to be the standard that had to be met. "This might be one of those things where everybody's just assumed that that's the rule forever," Martin said. "But if it is, there are a lot of people in this garage area who assume that you have to keep pace with the pace car."

Truthfully, that's not a surprise. NASCAR is an entity that has rules piled upon rules, many of them written in language that would stymie a tax attorney. It's a sport where everything, even something that seems cast in bedrock, can be twisted into a judgment call. It's a series where the target doesn't move, it's tossed around like a Frisbee. It's a sport where even the competitors are hazy on the statutes that govern them. It's a strange world where the winner of the race can be the guy who, according to the scoring system, crossed the line fourth.

It all leads to nights like Sunday, when drivers and owners and crew chiefs were all apparently operating under a false sense of beliefs. A sport based on judgment calls fosters that type of environment. And it makes it only a matter of time before the next credibility crisis arises.

The opinions expressed are solely of the writer.