Saved By The Bell

By: Derek Pierce

The line of sport and entertainment can often be a very fine line. Viewers use these sports as entertainment, so when trying to put on the most engaging product possible, it's easy to overstep the line to entertainment. We've seen NASCAR do just that for seemingly every race over the past two weeks. At some point you have to decide whether you want to be the WWE or UFC.

Even More Inconsistencies

For those unaware, last night's race at Atlanta went into overtime after a crash with four laps to go. Though aggressive for the first lap, there were no wrecks meaning the leaders took the white flag. They even made it down the backstretch and into turn three where Carson Hocevar gave Christopher Bell a huge push before making a move to his inside making it three wide with Kyle Larson on the bottom. Just as this move was made, fans saw the yellow lights flash around the track. Just a quarter of a lap left in the race, and the fans were stripped away of what could have been another three wide photo finish. 

The immediate reactions were wondering what wreck happened to cause the caution to come out. If you recall, just a week ago, we had a massive wreck that involved just about every single car in the field and despite that there was still a mile, if not more, for the leaders to go before taking the checkered flag, NASCAR decided a caution wasn't necessary. However, when Josh Berry was sent spinning from around ninth place and collecting a decent amount of cars in the process, it was determined that this was caution worthy.

Although this call could've been expected from NASCAR's response to their decision to let the Xfinity race the night prior finish under green despite a very similar wreck at a very similar spot of the track. In their response, they said that they regretted letting it finish out and that they should've thrown the caution.

As a fan of the sport and "purity", I would love to see these finishes play out under green and get a true winner of the race rather than who was lucky enough to be ahead at the time of an inevitable caution. However, as someone who does have knowledge of the working of the sport and wanting to keep all drivers as safe as possible, I can understand why NASCAR doesn't want the cars to keep going at full speed with a wreck in front of them to try to pick up as many spots as possible and to get the safety crew to the cars as soon as possible. The one thing that all fans can agree on is that these calls must be consistent. We cannot sit here after every single race and listen to an official say that they should've called it one way, but called it the other. Something needs to change, whether it be a straight rule to remove this grey area or just learning how they want to make these calls themselves, rather than relying on fan feedback from X. Change needs to happen.

Drivers Becoming Weapons

Bad officiating wasn't the only recurring theme from last night, drivers being way too aggressive and causing needless wrecks was also prevalent. 

Larson has become a repeat offender at this point. Although his antics can go slightly unnoticed if you don't pay close attention to what his tactic is, he does the same thing time and time again and continues to ruin the races of multiple drivers. If you play close attention to his defense tactic, when a driver approaches his outside on the exit of the turn with the clear ability to get a run down the straight on him, Larson will slowly continue to move up the track, squeezing the outside driver to be forced to either back out entirely or hit the wall. With how slowly and nonchalantly it happens, some people miss that Larson is willingly moving up the track and instead blame it on the outside driver squeezing into a closing gap. He's done this before the Chase Elliott multiple times, Denny Hamlin at Pocono, and to Austin Cindric last night. Rather than just putting Cindric in the wall though, Cindric bounced off the wall down another lane while William Byron was trying to get up the track which resulted in contact them sent both cars spinning into the inside wall, ending their races from what was otherwise avoidable contact.

The other driver that seemingly couldn't make enough drivers mad last night was Hocevar. The first altercation was with Kyle Busch back in the first stage. Although I don't have the full details of what happened, Hocevar had been repetedly making an aggressive move that costed Busch valuable positions on track. The big incident though, was with just short of 30 laps left in the race. Being the second car on the bottom lane, Hocevar had a huge run entering turn one, a point where most drivers don't dare to try to push because of how easily it can make the car in front spin. However, rather than backing out of it or trying to square up on the bumper of Ryan Blaney to push, he kept full throttle and hit Blaney on the right side of the bumper which nearly sent him straight into the outside wall. Luckily for Blaney, he managed to overcorrect it the other way, sending him sliding on the apron as he slowly spun around and brought out another caution. 

Some have related this aggressive style to Ross Chastain and I think that it's not an unfair comparison with how hungry they both are to get those wins, doing these aggressive and sometimes bonehead moves to get everything you can out of a good race seems like the best thing to do in the moment. Though Chastain has grown past this point, Hocevar still has a lot of learning to do as this is something he was known for in the Truck Series as well, most infamously known for wrecking Corey Heim in the championship race while trying to get past him. With how quickly everything moves, it's so hard to judge a driver for making some minor mistakes, but when you start making these major mistakes that take competitors completely out of the race, the self-policing nature of the sport starts to kick in. With a road course and some short tracks coming up on the schedule, I would watch out if I was Hocevar because eventually someone is going to want some payback.

Notable Finishers

Carson Hocevar - I know I just spent forever talking about Hocevar, but his finish deserves just as much recognition as his driving style. I don't think very many people thought he would have much speed heading into this race, let alone a chance to win it all, especially after Daytona where he was barely hanging on to the back of the pack. But out of nowhere, this team charged their way to the front at the beginning of the race. While they had phases of falling a bit down the order, they always found their way back to around the top five. On the final restart, he was in the second row which allowed him to be in position to make a move at the very end, which as detailed before he did. He gave a huge push to Bell into the final turn, made a move to his inside giving us a three wide battle for the lead. The unfortunate part was that the caution came out before we could see how it would all play. Although the top lane typically gets the run down the front straightaway, there's always a chance of something else happening and that might've allowed Hocevar to get his first win. However, the shoe didn't quite fit on Cinderella's foot last night. However, a second place finish is still an impeccable accomplishment for the Spire Motorsports team and I have a feeling this is only the beginning. With all of the talented drivers this team has and how they've improved each year they've been in the series, there will be great things to come from them soon.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. - Last week it looked like Stenhouse could've had a chance at winning another Daytona 500, after being one of the causes of a huge wreck, but it just wasn't meant to be as he got caught up in a wreck resulting in an 18th place finish. Luckily, back to back drafting tracks, which are Stenhouse's strong suit, gives them a good chance to have a bounce back result and they did just that. Though, not quite in position to win the race, he managed a quiet race and wound up with a top five finish.

John Hunter Nemechek - Unlike Stenhouse, Nemechek walked away happy with his finish from Daytona. Finishing fifth, despite not really showing any speed is a great accomplishment and the showings of a good team being able to make the most out of each race. They did it once again last night. Not really showing any true speed, in fact his teammate, Erik Jones, was the one able to run up front but spun into the wall and never had the speed again, but still getting a top 10 finish. Right now they sit tied for sixth place in points and if they can continue this trend of making the best out of each race, they might be able to sneak into the playoff conversation. While I don't expect this to continue on most tracks because of how much harder it can be on something that isn't a superspeedway, this is still a huge improvement from last year that hopefully won't have them last in points.

Austin Cindric - Despite the title of this section, Cindric isn't on here for how he finished. Thanks to the incident mentioned before from Larson, his day was pretty much ended with four laps left. However, the raw speed and domination he showed was just truly impressive. Not only did he lead 47 laps himself, but you can attribute just about every lap that Josh Berry and Joey Logano led to Cindric because he stuck behind them and pushed them while blocking any run coming from behind. Cindric's speed allowed for it to be essentially a two car breakaway from the rest of the pack, no matter who was in front of him. Not only was he fast out front, but after getting stuck in the middle of the pack, he showed enough speed to make his way back the front way easier than Logano or Berry could. I truly think that Cindric is the best superspeedway driver right now and it's almost no contest. This year could be a breakout for him if he shows the same amount of growth on the other types of tracks. Consider the momentum he's had from the dominance he has shown at Daytona and Atlanta being carried over to COTA, a track Cindric should be pretty competitive at with his two top fives and having led laps, and there's a chance he truly contends for a race win.

The Winner

Last and certainly, not least, we have the winner of the race to talk about. Bell was probably the most "Where did he come from" driver at the finish of this race. I don't think he broke the top 10 until the final stage and the only lap that he led was the final lap. However, we have to question whether he would've won without the caution on the last lap. While I don't think it completely invalidates the win because there was still a decent chance that he does get to the line barely ahead of the others, he might've been saved by the bell. 

Regardless, we have another driver locked into the playoffs and ironically the two winners so far are the drivers that were involved in the huge Martinsville controversy last year. We also can walk away happy that the unpredictable nature of drafting races didn't give us a winner that was highly unlikely to be competitive in the playoffs like we've had in the past with Harrison Burton, Daniel Suarez, Ricky Stenhouse, etc. 

Agree with the call of the caution at the end or not, the result is the result and we can only hope that something changes for these calls to be much more uniform in the future. The points standings are still up in the air given we've had two pretty crazy races to kick off the season, but there are a ton of feel good stories happening throughout the field and two of the strongest competitors are already locked into this years playoff field.