Consistency is Key

By: Derek Pierce

Officiating any sport is extremely difficult. With so much going on, it's so easy to miss something, not to mention the subjectivity of what one official can call compared to another. We all see the sport in different ways, but all we can ask for as fans is consistency. If slight contact to the shooter is a foul for the home team, it should be for the away team too. If a wreck in turn three for one series brings out a caution for one race, it should for another race. Especially when those races are a mere two days apart.

That's right, NASCAR once again has shot themselves in the foot with their lack of consistency with their officiating. It seemed that for a while they had it well understood on when it's necessary to throw a caution on the last lap and when to let the drivers race it out. That completely changed heading into the new year apparently. 

In the second duel race on Thursday night, the finish was hotly contested. Drivers were side by side, pushing full speed to the end. It was Erik Jones and Austin Cindric neck and neck coming out of turn three. A wreck in the middle of the pack sends a few cars spinning just before the trioval, but the top eight cars continue going. Nobody's close enough to push Jones or Cindric, it's a classic drag race to the line. Cindric looking to win the duel despite already being locked onto the front row and dominating the race; Jones looking for his first measure of success for Legacy Motor Club's Toyota tenure. At the line, Jones narrowly edges Cindric by a bumper, a finish that will be used in YouTube compilations for years to come. Or at least it would be if it weren't for NASCAR throwing the yellow flag just a couple hundred feet before the finish line. A wreck that collected less than half the field, with seemingly no hard hits for any driver involved, just short of the finish line was worthy of a caution in NASCAR's eyes. As a result, the fantastic photo finish and amazing story for Jones was all diminished with the click of a button. Cindric walked away the winner and Jones is just the second place finisher. "But that's just a duel. It doesn't mean anything other than starting position and a couple points. Jones is starting in the same place he would if he won and only lost out on one point," you might be saying. Well, lets look at another example in the same weekend.

The Truck Series race on Friday night was just as bad of a call. Heading into turn three, Parker Kligerman is leading the race for a very small race team, looking to get them the biggest win they could hope for. Behind him a push to Ben Rhodes sends Rhodes up the track into his teammate which sends them both spinning to the infield, nobody else was collected. Luckily the caution didn't come out for this otherwise the situation would've been much more questionable. So then what did bring out the caution? Coming out of turn four, Layne Riggs gets loose and fights the truck to get back straight until he unfortunately goes full sideways. Once sideways, a few trucks avoid him and others make contact from not being able to slow down enough. This collected a whopping eight trucks all the way at the back of the pack in which not a single one had a significant hit that seemed to require immediate attention. Meanwhile, Corey Heim was looking to get a run on Kligerman and pass him for the first win of what is sure to be a strong season. He gets right to his bumper before the caution comes out, forcing Heim to be stuck behind Kligerman instead of using the entire front stretch run to the finish line to get the run needed to win the race, probably ending in another photo finish.

After these finishes, the fanbase was not silent. Outraged that these finishes are being ruined because NASCAR is jumping the gun with the cautions on the final lap when they really aren't necessary. The point of cautions at that point of the race are for the violent hits that absolutely require immediate medical attention to make sure everyone is alright. In neither of these cases was there a hit even close to looking violent enough for this type of reaction and even if there was, by the time the caution was thrown, the drivers were so close to the finish line that the response time would be just about the same, maybe a few seconds delayed. This was the talking point for the next couple of days and even leading into the Daytona 500 and what happened there?

Denny Hamlin and Austin Cindric are side by side battling for the lead heading down the backstretch. Behind Hamlin, Cole Custer gets a huge run and decides to take it to the outside lane. When Chase Briscoe behind him doesn't follow, he tries to move down to side draft Hamlin and get in front of him. However, Briscoe is running slightly higher than Hamlin which turns Custer in front of the whole field. With how close everyone is, this collects the entire field except for four drivers. While some are only sent spinning both side of the track, others are slamming into the wall and into each other. William Byron escapes first with Reddick close behind despite being hit by a spinning Denny Hamlin. As they enter turn three, everyone sits in anticipation of the caution lights flicking on. Then they enter turn four and still nothing. At this point the realization sits in, this race is going to end under green. It's now a drag to the finish in which Byron wins pretty solidly. Now we're left wondering, if the other two incidents were worthy of a caution, why the hell was this one, which was twice as big, not?

Well, NASCAR was essentially in a lose-lose situation here. A lot of the feedback after the race wasn't anger towards the decision to not throw the caution in this lone instance, but rather the fact that they decided to change their discretion in the middle of the weekend. The inconsistency not only confuses the fans and drivers on what makes for a caution worthy incident, but it questions the legitimacy of the calls in the past and near future. How valid are the wins by Cindric and Kilgerman, had he not failed post-race tech? Does NASCAR change their views based on who's leading and the chances of the next car passing them? It's an understatement to say that a good chunk of the fanbase has come to the conclusion that there is a bias towards certain teams by the race officials and sanctioning body because of these kinds of inconsistent calls going in favor of a team like Penske or Hendrick. So if fans, want consistency, how would NASCAR lose in the case of them deciding to throw the caution for the wreck?

It's simple. The NASCAR online fanbase is one of the worst in all of sports and can never make their minds up on what they truly want to change. If the caution is called, the entire week will be spent complaining about how for the third time that weekend, they ended the race under yellow and didn't let the drivers just race back to the line. 

Rather than face this backlash, NASCAR decided to listen to the fans on social media for what seems to be the first time in a while. It all just lives up to the "Be careful what you wish for," quote. The fans wished for NASCAR to let the drivers get to the line when a last lap wreck happens because it does give for much better and more legitimate finishes that create satisfaction for the race as a whole. Now that they got it, they are still finding a way to complain about it. 

All in all, something does need to be done. We can't be completely lost on what constitutes for a caution on the final lap when it occurs. My personal proposition is a rule that says the caution will not be thrown on the last lap after the leaders pass a certain area of the track, whether it be the middle of the backstretch or turn four. There just needs to be something more clear for them to hang these types of calls on because of how inconsistent it can seem due to the discretion. No matter what happens though, we know there will be a very vocal group of fans that won't like it.