Photo Credit: Noel Lanier
Over the past month, there have been occasions throughout races in which drivers have jumped the restart in the eye of their competitor, but yet it hasn’t been called on NASCAR. Aric Almirola, for example, said that Matt Kenseth jumped the final restart at Richmond international Raceway, however he doesn’t seem that to be a fact.
With the Chase for the Championship beginning this weekend, it has been a big part of the discussions, with driver wanting to see the issue addressed by NASCAR.
“I think the key to restarts is consistency,” Brad Keselowski commented. “If NASCAR wants to kind of let it play out on the race track then they need to continue to do that. If they don’t, then they need to make it a point to say that everything that has gone on to date is not okay. The ball is in their court.”
Without the consistency that the driver are currently pleading for, Carl Edward feels “there’s still a lot of gray area there that I don’t think everyone in the garage understands exactly what is allowable and what’s not”. For that reason, Joey Logano is pleading for the same thing, especially feeling that he was bitten by the restart issue last weekend and doesn’t want the same to happen at perhaps the season finale at Homestead.
“It is a tough position for them and I understand where NASCAR is with it,” he admitted. “It is a ball and strike call. But baseball does that every week with every pitch. They make a ball and strike call. A lot of times someone isn’t happy about it but if it is something blatantly obvious you have to make the call. You have to do it. It is a tough position for them when you look at angles and when there is a race win or possibly a championship on the line, it could be a lot larger than what happened last weekend. Really all we need to know is what can and can’t we do and be consistent with that. If you can go early, that is okay, we just all need to know that.”
Logano added that the drivers rely on the sanctioning body to create a level playing field, and they are relying on NASCAR to get involved “unless we all will take every little bit that is there”.
As of right now, though, while the issue remains up in the air, they try to balance the fine line of when it’s okay to accelerate as the leader, and what is deemed okay versus not okay. Logano says jumping by a car length is fine, but it starts to cross the line if you’re jumping by four to six car-lengths.
When it come to restarts as of right now, they’re not viewed as an disadvantage or advantage by the drivers, per Brad Keelowski, but rather a game of rock-paper-scissors”, with drivers being forced to counter the moves of the driver next to them.
“As (it) has happened it starts with the leader and the zone not being allowed to dictate it,” he commented. “If the guy in second place is lagging back then the only defense to that is to go early, both of which are illegal by the definition. Neither of which have been consistently called as an infraction. If one guy lags back and beats you when you do everything legal, then you have to defend it. That is your job. I felt like as the leader at Darlington I probably had half a dozen or more attempts at controlling the restart and I kept the lead the majority but not 100-percent of the time. The few times where I lost the lead it was very obvious that the car next to me had lagged back significantly and there was no call made.”
Logano adds that when that starts happening “the control car is no longer the control car, it becomes the second place car because he controls when the leader can go”, which most of the drivers view as being wrong as the leader should control the restart.
There have been suggestions to fix the problem, such as Denny Hamlin suggesting that they make the restart zone longer than it is currently as right now they’re so tiny that “by the time you get to the first line you’re nearly to the second”.
“If you make that box – at a local short track it’s between three and four and nearly the flag stand the leader starts the race, and so the second place person can anticipate that much,” Hamlin commented. “I think it would be better to open that zone up two, three times the size of it right now and then don’t let that second place guy beat the first one to the line.”
With the inconsistency seen as of late, there has been talk of possibly implementing an electronic system to monitor restarts, just as NASCAR has done for pit road infractions. That is something that drivers have expressed interest in seeing, as Keselowski says when it comes to any sanctioning body for any sport, you want “to see them have the best tools possible o see them eliminate any kind of gray area when judging a rules infraction”. He added that’d it be in NASCAR’s best interest to look at this type of system to eliminate “eliminates any suspicion that someone might undertake that there is favoritism being played”.
Logano also feels that it would, but also states that typically when there is a jumped restart, it’s “usually blatant” and anybody is able to notice it immediately.
“You guys have watched enough racing to know,” he added. “I also believe NASCAR has been around long enough to understand what is good and what is not good and they can figure that our fairly quick with the instruments they have now. To your point, I don’t think if you had some data with speeds or better angles to be able to visually see it a little better it wouldn’t hurt.”
For now, some of the drivers have spoken to NASCAR about the issue and now Logano says, “we will wait and see where it goes”.
“I believe it will be fixed and we will be able to race hard and if it comes down to something like that at the end of a race for a championship then I would expect them to stand up and make the call,” he added.
