NASCAR’s Tandem Drafting Rule causes controversy – as expected

NASCAR team owners and fans both expressed the fact that they did not tandem drafting at Daytona so a solution was drawn up. NASCAR outlawed the act, saying that if a driver locked bumpers with another, they would be brought to pit road to serve a pass-through penalty.

During the course of the DRIVE4COPD 300, the drivers – in NASCAR’s eyes – behaved and followed protocol all the way till 35 laps to go, when they deemed that James Buescher had broken the rule.

“I never locked bumpers,” Buescher said over his radio.” There’s a camera on that 22 car. I never locked bumpers. We’re gonna talk about it after the race.”

Buescher ended up serving the penalty, which put him deep in the field, where he would eventually finish.

“(NASCAR) said if you bounce off the car in front of you there’s no call,” Buescher said after the race per Popular Speed. “As far as I’m concerned there was only bouncing and never locked the bumper. I haven’t seen a replay so I don’t know what exactly they’re saying was the time that I got called on but we had been bouncing off of everybody’s bumpers all day — everybody had.

“Obviously, they’re going to make calls and they had to make an example out of somebody. I saw people that actually had their bumpers locked on and didn’t get penalties so I’m still a little bit baffled by it.”

Throughout the course of the event, many drivers pushed the boundaries as fans noticed it and were commenting on twitter. Some examples concerned Kyle Busch and Trevor Bayne, who opted for what became known as the ‘bopping’ method. The method keeps you tucked up to the person in front of you, repeatedly bumping their bumper to push them out in front. However, with keeping closely tucked together, there were moments that you could say the bumpers were locked.

When the rule was revealed back in January, it brought forth questions right away. Putting a decision in NASCAR’s hand brings forth a judgement call and with every judgement call, there seems to be controversy that follows it. Drivers will do whatever it takes to win, and that includes pushing the rules to the limits. If they figure that they can do something and not get caught, they will do it if it leads them to victory.

“You’re mixing fire and nitrous oxide  there trying to not cause a big bomb and get penalized,” Kyle Busch commented in how drivers were pushing the boundaries throughout the race.

While an exciting finish took place and many stars emerged throughout the race with close side-by-side racing at the end, ESPN broadcasters and fans were more focused towards debating the length of the bump and whether this was right or that was right.

This is a course of action that NASCAR does not need to head down as we saw the results of Richmond and how everybody was perceived as a result. NASCAR needs to watch the rules they create and how they choose to enforce them or else they may have more fans angry over this, rather than focused on the racing product and stars of the sport.