Yahoo Autos NASCAR stands by Indianapolis caution call
NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer stands by the timing of the caution that ended Sunday’s race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway while reiterating the tower likes to give a driver time to pull away from an accident scene before making the call.
“Now we’ve had the opportunity of 24, 48 hours to digest it, I still go back and think our race director did a really good job in how he managed that,” Sawyer said Tuesday morning on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
Ryan Preece spun off Turn 2 from contact with Chase Elliott as the field was on two laps to go in the second overtime attempt. Preece’s No. 41 Ford Mustang made contact with the inside wall but Preece initially started to move away from the scene. But the car was sitting idle as the field came through Turn 4 and down the frontstretch to the white flag.
Preece tried again to get the car going but it didn’t move as Kyle Larson led the field through Turn 1. NASCAR called the caution as Preece – who posted on social media Monday he ran out of fuel after being spun – continued to sit idle with the field going through the short-cute between Turns 1 and 2.
“Our goal at every event is to finish under green,” said Sawyer. “That’s what our goal is going into the weekend but there are circumstances that happen on the last lap at Indy and I’ll go back to last year at Pocono, a very similar situation with the same car I might add, the 41.
“[In] both we’re trying to give that car every opportunity to get started, get rolling, and let the race end naturally. As we came off Turn 4 coming to the start/finish line to the white, it’s a two-and-a-half-mile racetrack so you still have a lot of racing that can happen.
“As the cars started to get off in Turn 1, you’re starting to get closer to having to make a decision, and that’s really our process and our mindset. It’s the same as it was last year at Pocono; I believe the 41 had spun in the tunnel turn, and again, you give the drivers every opportunity to get going but also the guys that are leading, you can’t let them race through a situation where you got a car stopped on the racetrack. That was our decision process and how we digest that through a very quick (period).”
Larson won the Brickyard 400 over Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney. The caution for Preece was the 10th of the race, which went 167 laps because of the two overtime attempts.
