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NASCAR’s decision to truncate its overtime process for last weekend’s race at Talladega Superspeedway reduced the number of green-white-checkered attempts from its customary three to one. Thanks to a perfect storm of factors in the waning laps, it did not decrease the carnage or the confusion.
The remaining eight drivers alive in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup playoffs did their best to sort it out Tuesday, examining the rare and peculiar aborted non-attempt and the actual final restart attempt — both of which resulted in multicar crashes before the field ever reached the flagstand. The spectacle even left NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France to call the ending “strange” in a Tuesday afternoon appearance on NBCSN’s “NASCAR America.”
The double-whammy of race-ending anticlimax raised the question — if NASCAR’s big-leaguers can take the initial start without issue, then make mid-race restarts with relative ease, why don’t late-race restarts go off without a hitch?
“Because we’re idiots, every one of us,” Harvick said Tuesday at the NASCAR Hall of Fame. “We’re pushing and shoving. You’re pushing past the limits. You’re pushing past everything you’re supposed to do. You know it’s wrong.”
Granted, it’s a small sample size — one procedural rules change for one race — with the noble intention of improving safety at Talladega, where restrictor-plate engine rules slow the field at one of the circuit’s fastest tracks. The change came about at least partly in response to Austin Dillon‘s frightening crash at sister track Daytona International Speedway in an overtime finish in July.
Though Sunday’s ending quashed the hopes of a two-lap dash under the green flag, the decision for one green-white-checkered attempt still found favor among the remaining eight Chasers.
“Just from the driver standpoint, I think it’s too much risk that’s involved to do multiple green-white-checkereds,” said four-time series champion Jeff Gordon. “Each time you have a green-white-checkered, there’s so much aggression that goes on on those restarts. You’re putting everyone in a position to not lift, to not hold back, to do things outside their comfort zone. That’s what’s going to cause some big wrecks. I think doing it one time is enough.”
Before the rules change ever went into effect, 2012 series champion Brad Keselowski was among the proponents of shortening overtime at Talladega, saying he’d be content with just one green-white-checkered attempt. The outcome of Sunday’s race didn’t sway his opinion.
“NFL and some other sports have an overtime, but that’s only if the score is tied. I don’t consider a yellow flag in the closing stages of the race to be a tie,” Keselowski said. “I consider it to be a stoppage of play. In that sense, when the cars go the scheduled race distance, to me, the race is over. Yeah, does it stink when it happens under yellow? Absolutely, but those things happen and that’s why you’ve got to make a pass before you run out of time.”
NASCAR competition officials have a little less than four months to determine whether similar overtime restrictions will be in place for the 2016 season-opening Daytona 500. Even less clear was whether the decision-making process that led to Sunday’s waved-off restart would eventually become an ironclad part of race procedure.
The one constant — no matter how many overtime attempts — remains the ratcheted pressure of the Chase, especially during restarts with the laps ticking down.
“It’s the end of the race. Look at how important every point is,” Harvick said. “In those situations you have to be overly aggressive. You have to go over the edge.”
