FORT WORTH, Texas — The ending of the NASCAR All-Star Race was embarrassing, and if Ryan Blaney had not won, the situation would only be worse.
Blaney crossed the finish line first when the checkered flag was waving, or so everyone thought. The caution came out just several dozen yards before he reached the line due to a Ricky Stenhouse Jr. incident on the backstretch, and the rules of the All-Star race state that the event must end under green flag conditions.
Race not over. Overtime, here we come.
Blaney initially believed he won and let down his window net on what he thought was the cool-down lap. But the race wasn’t official, and he had to put the net back up or else be black flagged.
He managed to get the net up, and although it wasn’t perfectly secured, NASCAR allowed him to maintain his position and continue the race from the lead. The race restarted, and Blaney kept the top position and won in a bizarre fashion.
Denny Hamlin finished second. He wasn’t happy with the sequence of events that concluded the race, not because he missed out on the victory and $1 million, but because he felt race control did not handle Blaney’s safety situation properly.
“This isn’t a Denny Hamlin judgment call. I’m just saying that whatever the rule is — let’s play consistently by the rule,” Hamlin said. “It’s unfortunate because he made a mistake. He should have won the race. He was 100 yards from winning the race. But many cars have not won races because of green-white-checkers or because of a mistake on a restart at the end.
“All I ask is that we know what the rules are.”
Never should have been a yellow in the first place. They put Blaney in the situation he was in. To make up for it they let him break a rule. 2 wrongs don’t make a right.
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) May 23, 2022
Blaney W, NASCAR L
The call on the caution and Blaney’s window net put everyone in an unfavorable position. The purpose of a caution is to slow the field down when there is a hazardous incident on the track. In this case, it was Ricky Stenhouse Jr.
And the purpose of the window net is to protect the driver inside the cockpit from being exposed to any debris that could fly into the car during an accident or any other dangerous circumstance.
But the All-Star rule that says the race must end under green complicated everything. If this were any other race, the finish would have been official as soon as the yellow flag waved, and there would have been no controversy over the final moments of the event at Texas Motor Speedway.
“When the leader takes the white flag, the next flag wins the race … we thought it,” Blaney said. That caught all of us off guard, and it was short-lived panic mode in my spot, figuring out how the hell I’m going to get the window net up. … I was able to get it latched enough finally that NASCAR deemed that it was safe.”
NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Scott Miller said the Stenhouse caution was implemented “prematurely” and essentially said the race director pulled the trigger too early on the yellow.
“The way that works in the tower is that we’re all watching around the race track, and obviously, the race director who has the button makes the call and is the final say if it gets put out,” Miller said. “We all watched, and we saw the [Stenhouse] car against the wall on the back straightaway. The race director looked up, and I’m not sure what he saw, but he immediately put it out.
“Wish we wouldn’t have done that, but we did that.”
Scott Miller of NASCAR says the caution in question was “premature.”
— John Haverlin (@JohnHaverlin) May 23, 2022
Said the race director threw the caution immediately, and wishes he wouldn’t have done that.
Props to him for owning the mistake. pic.twitter.com/4BybYBJ3Lg
If Stenhouse had genuinely been in a dangerous situation, the caution would absolutely be understandable. NASCAR’s job is to protect its drivers during a race and to give the benefit of the doubt to the race director, maybe he really thought he saw something that he believed was hazardous enough to warrant a stoppage in the green flag conditions.
Ultimately, that wasn’t the case, and Stenhouse made it to the pits during the yellow. So it was a clear human error, and although the officiating folks of any competition are expected to be perfect 100% of the time, it doesn’t always end up that way.
As for Blaney’s window net, that was an even stickier situation. Blaney said he felt completely safe with the net as it was when he rehung it while in the car. And NASCAR said it was OK, and that’s all that matters. Even if Blaney is lying and the net wasn’t as secure as he’d like, he was never going to relinquish the lead and not go the $1 million and the win.
It was an ugly night for an already convoluted race that has lost its appeal over the years. Quirky race formats seem to confuse the fans and competitors every year, and it always seems to make some followers of the sport question whether an All-Star event is even necessary.
The All-Star race has been a part of NASCAR lure for decades, but recently, there has not been anything memorable about the race. It only seems to create frustration and feels like its existence has overstayed its welcome.
Yes, it has become a NASCAR tradition, but so what? NASCAR used to open its season at a road course in Southern California, race at Daytona International Speedway on July 4th Weekend, and conclude its season at Homestead-Miami Speedway, too. But the sanctioning body had no problem getting rid of these things. Why not just scrap the All-Star Race?
It doesn’t count towards the championship. It’s the same drivers that race every weekend anyway. And the goofy formats don’t add any intrigue for fans; it just confuses them. And $1 million? That might be worth paying attention to if NASCAR still released race purse information every week to the public, but fans generally don’t know what the drivers make after any given race, so why should they care about the winnings from an exhibition race?
Why is NASCAR still doing this? Enough is enough. This race was especially painful to team owners who had wrecked cars, by the way, since the Next Gen vehicle is still not abundantly available and quite expensive. I’m sure they aren’t happy about having a trashed car for an event with no title implications.
NASCAR’s All-Star Race has lost its touch, and it doesn’t appear to have an immediate fix. There are fans who probably still enjoy this event and want it to be a success, but it never seems to pan out this way anymore. Instead of continuing to give itself a bad look for a non-points race, NASCAR should just put it on the shelf and never touch it again.
