Jumped Restart or Jumping to Conclusions

Last night's Richmond race was largely dominated by Kyle Larson and Martin Truex Jr., but after a late caution leading to NASCAR overtime, Denny Hamlin found himself in position to win the race. 

As Denny approached the restart zone, it’s clear that he had gotten a better jump before Truex and almost clears him before entering turn 1. A closer look from the TV angle shows Hamlin actually gaining distance on Truex before entering the restart zone. While some can argue that it could’ve been Truex backing off, looking at in car angles it becomes apparent then Denny did jump the restart. 

From Truex’s car you can see Denny blast off before either car reaches the beginning of the zone with no apparent throttle change in Truex’s car. Immediately Truex got on the radio saying that Denny jumped. Then when you watch from Denny’s in car view you can hear him get in the throttle early. All of this was found by fans on twitter with the minimal stuff they have access to while NASCAR has access to all of this as well as SMT data which shows how much throttle/brake was used by each driver at any point. While we can’t see the data, it’s hard to believe that it disproves everything we can clearly see and hear from the in car cameras.

According to NASCAR, Denny was very close to jumping it, but they did deem it as clean which allowed Denny to keep this win rather than giving it to 2nd place Joey Logano. Many fans claim that since it was an overtime finish, NASCAR has no right to get in the middle of it and change the outcome which creates a dangerous precedent. If drivers are allowed to jump the restart zone by a few feet because of the context of the situation, the rule becomes much grayer than it should be as this is one of the few black and white rules NASCAR holds. 

Unless I see SMT data that proves Denny didn’t jump the restart, I will be holding this against NASCAR and question any future jumped restarts because if one is legal but the same thing on a different track with a different driver in a different situation is illegal, what’s the explanation? There’s likely many others out there that feel the same way because even though I’d rather see Denny win than Logano, the rules need to stay consistent for any sort of legitimacy within a sport. Once we make a black and white rule into a gray area, we ruin the rule and create illegitimacy.