NASCAR is under fire from all sides as the Damaged Vehicle Policy (DVP) situation continues to get more complicated. There have been 3 incidents where this rule has come up, and while officials were consistent with their ruling in the first two situations, Talladega was a whole different story.

The ‘Big One’ had 28 cars involved in the pile-up and NASCAR with time constraints. The officials let most of the drivers back to the pit lane to continue the race.

Kevin Harvick joined in the DVP conversation

The inconsistency of NASCAR’s rules is what has many teams and fans frustrated. The first two incidents with the policy took place at Atlanta and Watkins Glen, where Ryan Blaney and Josh Berry, respectively, had to retire from the race early after a wreck. Although both the drivers believed that they could continue the race, NASCAR towed them out and ended their day. When it came to Talladega, however, many fans wanted to see Blaney and Berry continue their race, but according to the rules, if a car is too damaged to drive back to the pits under its power, the driver must remain in the car, and it cannot be towed back to the pits. Talladega, on the other hand, was a different situation. However, after the Talladega wreck, many cars couldn’t make it back to the pits themselves.

When NASCAR decided to tow multiple cars to the pits despite their rule, it was obvious that people would ask questions. After Denny Hamlin shared his stance on the Actions Detrimental podcast, even Kevin Harvick revealed his perspective on things. During ‘Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour podcast’, he did a segment where his team discussed the massive wreck at Talladega, which became the biggest wreck in NASCAR’s recent history.

Compared to the condition of either Blaney or Berry’s car, the vehicles involved in the YellaWood 500 sustained much more damage. However, NASCAR’s ruling to let them continue the race got to fans and critics who found the governing body’s decision to be unfair. Harvick made his opinion very clear in his first sentence itself as he said, “Well, I have a lot of information, but I don’t think I need to go too far because it was a complete s—show.” While discussing the matter, Harvick even stated, “We could completely screw up the whole point system and the way that this all worked out because of who they [NASCAR] decided to tow and who they didn’t decide to tow.”

Kevin Harvick believes that NASCAR should let teams decide if their cars should be put back on the tracks or retire from the race. In a race like Talladega where multiple drivers are fighting for a spot in the round of 12, a ruling like this changes things for the championship. It certainly did so for Denny Hamlin, who made the call to hang back in case an incident opened the field up for overtakes. The strategy that failed for him in Atlanta launched him from what could have been a finish outside the top 20 to finishing in 10th place by the time the checkered flag waved.

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Giving NASCAR the benefit of the doubt, he explained, “We have so many cars that are wrecked that we might not be able to have a whole race.”  Following the first two incidents, NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran made a statement about the wrecks, stating that NASCAR would not be making any changes to the DVP rule, but at Talladega, they did.

Harvick vented out about the last-minute rule change, saying, “If that’s what you’re going to do, you should at least tell the teams before the race what you’re going to do and how you’re going to err to the complete other side of this because of what you did the weeks before.” Ultimately, everyone wants to have a fair race. However, NASCAR’s decisions might make some feel like their call was unjust.

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NASCAR’s response to the Talladega incident

With the rising number of questions about the DVP, Elton Sawyer, the Senior Vice President of competition for NASCAR, came forward to silence the commotion. He spoke about the Big One with 5 laps left and explained, “Our goal is never to put good cars out of the race.” Sawyer then revealed the origin of the rule and said, “When we developed DVP five or 10 years ago, that’s never been the goal.”

As part of damage control, Sawyer stated, “Based on our experiences last week at Kansas and looking at what happened there, with the four cars, we felt like we probably could have made a different call there. We had a good car that probably just needed tires last week.” According to Sawyer, their intention has never been to take cars out of the race, and with 25+ cars coming to a standstill, the show had to go on.

After stating that NASCAR did not make the right call with Josh Berry’s situation, Sawyer affirmed that the call at Talladega was the right one. It would be disappointing for fans to have to see their drivers not completing the race so close to the finish. The incident started when Joey Logano and Harrison Burton made contact on the track and based on how everything turned out, it will be a race that fans will remember for a long time.

Looking at how NASCAR responded to the community questions. Do you think that NASCAR made the right move by letting the drivers continue? Share your thoughts in the comments below.