“The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading…” and I need to unload on the idiotic decision to scale back to one green-white-checker attempt…again.
Now I know y’all heard me make this rant just two days ago, but if NASCAR can do two takes of “one attempt,” then so can I. Now I do wish I had waited until today to start talking on the matter because I have more evidence to support my claim.
First we have the “waving off” of the first attempt despite the fact that Joey Logano had taken the restart. NASCAR’s reasoning on this was that Logano had not passed the start/finish line before the caution flew so it “didn’t count.” In other words, similar to what IndyCar does when the race control doesn’t like the restart. Now I understand NASCAR’s explanation on the issue. Maybe this was a rule that had always been in place and never needed to be used. But what I don’t understand is why this was never brought up when we spent a whole month arguing over restarts. My understanding has always been that once the green flag flies, the race is back under green.
I wasn’t the only person who didn’t understand this. Others in the NASCAR media didn’t get it either.
If accelerating out of the restart zone is not an attempt I don't know what is
— Pete Pistone (@PPistone) October 25, 2015
That never happened? #makeitupaswego
— Jim Utter (@jim_utter) October 25, 2015
Now we move to the “second attempt” at the “first attempt” at the green-white-checker finish where Trevor Bayne got out of line, Kevin Harvick made contact with him and the “Big One” happened. This brought out the caution that ended the race and Logano was declared the winner. Being in the stands for the race yesterday, myself and everyone around me had the expression of “that’s how we’re ending this?!”
I think Pete Pistone put it best with this tweet.
You couldn't have written up a more disastrous way for this race to end – impossible
— Pete Pistone (@PPistone) October 25, 2015
I hope NASCAR was satisfied with the change because it was a giant fiasco. You’d have to go a long way to screw up a Daytona or Talladega race and NASCAR did just that. They made the idiotic decision to reduce the number of green-white-checker attempts and ended up with this fiasco.
I truly, truly hope that NASCAR comes to their senses and goes back to the three attempts by the time we’re back in Daytona for Speedweeks. They should be embarrassed that it ended this way.
My plane is about to take off so I must get moving. Until next time, I’ll leave you with this fact. There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
*The opinions expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and may not represent the views of Speedway Media.
