O'Donnell defends call to finish under green

The decision contrasted with race control's judgment call last month to end the season-opening Daytona 500 under caution, freezing the field on the final lap when a multi-car crash erupted on the backstretch. That call, O'Donnell said, was made based on the perceived severity of the pileup.
 
"I think when you look at the end of the race, we will always try to finish the race under green-flag conditions, but we're always going to err on the side of safety," O'Donnell said Monday during NASCAR officials' weekly debrief with NASCAR.com. "So if you want to look back at Daytona, we made the decision based on the hit that we saw Kyle Larson take, based on our need to dispatch the safety equipment as quickly as possible. We made that decision to go ahead and display the yellow.
 
"If you fast-forward to what happened yesterday in California, when we looked at it in terms of Greg Biffle was able to drive away, the cars were still in Turn 2, we had eyes immediately on the ground in terms of our flagstand personnel to be able to see if there was any debris on the track. There wasn't, so we were able to let the cars come back and race under green-flag conditions to the checkered flag. So if we can do that, we will, but under no circumstances would we compromise safety in terms of a driver to be able to do that."
 
O'Donnell also addressed the most pivotal pit-road officiating call of Sunday's race, a late penalty for an uncontrolled tire on Denny Hamlin's Joe Gibbs Racing No. 11 crew that left him 28th at the finish and left crew chief Dave Rogers sternly arguing the call.
 
When the new pit-road officiating technology was introduced to teams in the offseason, NASCAR officials told teams that they would receive the benefit of the doubt in close calls, similar to a "tie goes to the runner" theory from baseball. O'Donnell said that philosophy still stands.
 
"Again, we'll go back to video replay. That's why the system was put in place," O'Donnell said. "I think Dave questioned whether we would err on the side of the competitors and referenced what we said at the beginning of the year. We did say that, and we still hold to that, that we will err on the side of the competitors if we can't make a distinctive call, but under the review process … it was clear to us that there was a violation and in that case, we're going to make the call. With this system, it is precise. It's black and white in terms of whether or not we can make a call, very similar to pit-road speeding penalties.
 
"The drivers had asked for that to be more transparent, and under this new system, we're going to be more transparent as well. The good news is we can share that with the race teams, not only during the race, but after the race as well, and walk them through why the call was made and show them as well."
 
O'Donnell also capped NASCAR's first foray into a three-race West Coast swing, remarking about the strong showing by fans in the grandstands at Auto Club Speedway.
 
"Terrific crowd, really a great ending to our West Coast swing. Great job by the folks at Phoenix, Las Vegas and California. Great turnout by the fans out West, and I think it gave us a really great platform to look out in the future. We'll certainly talk to the industry and see what their perspective was, but we give it a big thumbs-up in terms of our first effort heading West."

MORE: