[media-credit name=”Dan Sanger” align=”alignright” width=”240″]
[/media-credit]The caution flagged waived on lap 78 in Saturday’s inaugural NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Sadler was in the second spot for the restart, lining up the No. 2 Chevrolet on the outside of race leader Brad Keselowski.
When the green flag dropped, Sadler moved into the lead, but was penalized by NASCAR as officials reported he crossed the start-finish line before the leader.
Keselowski spun his tires and got loose from contact from teammate Sam Hornish Jr. on the inside during the restart while Sadler was being pushed from behind by the No.3 driven by Austin Dillon.
“He did not jump the restart. But the rules are that he cannot beat the No. 1 starter to the line. That’s what he did. He clearly did that. He had him cleared by the time they got to the start/finish line, and made no attempt to give it back. That’s the rules of the restart.” vice president for competition Robin Pemberton said.
Sadler was forced to serve a pass-through penalty on lap 89, returning to the field in the 24th position. Sadler battled back to finish 15th.
“This is a tough one to swallow. We really wanted to win this inaugural race. Today my heart was definitely ripped out of my chest. We will rebound from this, and the OneMain Financial team will be even hungrier next week at Iowa Speedway for a win.” Sadler said.
Team owner Richard Childress directed some of the blame on Keselowski and said that Keselowski laid back on the restart.
As my story title states, what exactly could or should Sadler have done? Let off and back up the outside lane and let everyone else including the leader get around you? That would have most likely caused a huge wreck.
There are numerous scenarios that could have or should have been done, but it’s just a blown call by NASCAR. Another restart could have rectified the situation or NASCAR could have just noticed that the situation was out of Sadler’s control and let the race play out. They had several laps to review the situation, yet blow it.
Great call!
Those bozos that made this call couldn’t run a Sat. night race at a local dirt track. Did you see/hear Helton’s explanation of it? He as good as said “we blew it, but don’t think it will make any difference today. We will still make the rules today as we see them.”
I hope those suits (the three blind mice, Huth, Pemberton and Helton) have a few sleepless nights for costing Elliott over $150,000 and the points lead, maybe championship.
Nothing new about them, they still don’t know what they are doing.
It’s beginning to look as if the leadership of NASCAR has all taken some kind of advanced course on how to destroy a sport and the fans that made it.
Stupid is as stupid does. Have a great day Pemberton, your passing the course with straight A’s.