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MARTINSVILLE, Va. — It was the perfect storm at an imperfect time.
There was nothing unusual when, in the midst of a cycle of green-flag pit stops during Sunday’s Goody’s Fast Relief 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway, the caution flag appeared.
It’s a scenario that has played out numerous times for a series that features 36 points races each season and hundreds of laps in each race.
Carl Edwards, driver of the No. 19 Toyota for Joe Gibbs Racing, had hit the wall, and was scrambling to get to pit road on Lap 357 of the 500-lap event.
But while sorting out the various running positions of those competitors who already had pitted from those who had yet to come to pit road, situations developed. The leader, eventual race winner Jimmie Johnson, came to a stop on the track when he accidentally killed the power to his Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet, which was already short on fuel.
Once those who had yet to pit made their stops and officials were attempting to set the order for the restart, anxious drivers contested their spots in the lineup.
It was confusing, but officials said the important thing was to make sure the order was correct before resuming green-flag racing in the first race of the Chase for the Sprint Cup‘s Round of 8. In the meantime, 29 laps around the .526-mile track were run under yellow.
“Today was a very dynamic situation; it was unique, as you saw,” Sprint Cup Series Managing Director Richard Buck said afterward. “We were right in the middle of green flag pit stops and we had to go to a caution. That presents one set of issues that we deal with and then from that point as it moved along and we started to get the lineup as we normally do, it went to another dynamic when we had the leader run out of fuel. …
“We understand the stakes of the Chase. They’re extremely high for everybody. Our job is to get it right. We’ve got a tremendous amount of resources up there (in the tower). We then moved into another dynamic of it, the wave-arounds. We took our time to make sure we got it right; we feel confident that we got it right.”
“Wave-arounds” are those not on the lead lap that choose not to pit under yellow, but remain on the track and are awarded their lap back. They may not pit until the race has returned to green-flag conditions.
Buck said officials will have conversations with teams this week in an effort to help them understand how the restart lineup was determined in this case.
“We have the multiple (timing and scoring) loops, which are computer driven, we have that data that come to us,” he said. “We have multiple banks of cameras that are at our disposal and replay systems. We’ll time sync those up and that’s how we go through that process. We wanted to make sure we got it right; it took a while but we felt very confident that we got it right and came back racing.”
Several teams said the issue became muddied when they believe drivers took the wave around improperly based on their positions in the running order. Others said they felt the eventual determination was not the correct one.
“I don’t want to harp on NASCAR, but they’ve got to fix that scoring situation,” four-time series champion Jeff Gordon said. “… I don’t think it affected us a lot, but it wasn’t right the way that they scored it and it went green. And we had to ride for 30 laps under caution. That wasn’t good.”
Still others expressed a little more confidence in the outcome.
“I know at points like that, sitting up there being NASCAR, it’s the hardest thing in the world to run all those laps (under yellow),” Edwards said. “But it’s the right thing.”
Chad Knaus, crew chief for race winner Jimmie Johnson, called it “a challenge.”
“When you have 40 cars going around a half‑mile race track, people start to pit, one guy is 12 seconds back, the other guy is three seconds back. It’s still very, very confusing to me right now,” he said. “I really don’t want to talk a whole heck of a lot about it because in my little world, I have one perspective. They’re up in the deejay booth up top so they can know what’s going on. They have a better perspective than I, so I’m sure we’ll get some clarification.
“Right now I’m happy as hell. How is that?”
Buck said while officials always have the ability to red-flag an event, stopping all activities on the track, they felt they were headed “to a quick resolution” when the caution appeared for Edwards’ incident. As other issues began to unfold, he said, “It presented us with a completely different set of circumstances.
“We were focused at that time on making sure we got it right.”
NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell took to Twitter after the race to respond to fan inquiries as well:
Thought we had correct line up earlier then had several unique circumstances come up-If we knew amount of time-would have gone red flag
— Steve O’Donnell (@odsteve) October 30, 2016
Transponders, timing loops, video. They all need to sync up though-no excuse-has to be quicker https://t.co/oItu5eSNNI
— Steve O’Donnell (@odsteve) October 30, 2016