Ever Imagined a sport where the rules seem to change with every turn of the track? What happened at Daytona in Cup and Xfinity Series races has sparked heated arguments from fans and drivers alike. Now, as another big event wrapped up in Atlanta, it’s left NASCAR officials feeling uneasy amidst the constant backlash over the organization’s consistent approach to stock car racing. Once again the talk of the town was NASCAR’s decision to flag the caution and end the race, potentially spoiling a three-wide photo finish.

“The Daytona 500 should have had the caution thrown…Unfortunately, those are just things that are gonna have to happen to keep the drivers safe. I know it would have been better if we were consistent about it.” Kevin Harvick opined. Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin rallied behind this idea demanding a consistent outcome when NASCAR finds themselves in such situations.

Although both Harvick and Hamlin are veterans of the sport, Mike Forde and his co-hosts weren’t sold on the idea of consistent calls to end the race. Their reason behind this hard stance wasn’t rooted in ideological differences but rather the complexity of racing venues that varies every weekend.

Mike Ford took an interest in the driver’s conversation as he stated, “What Denny said was, it sucks, but we’re the ones to wreck. Let’s start a new trend of consistency now. And he mentioned that Kevin Harvick also said he didn’t like how the Daytona five hundred ended.” Hamlin wanted NASCAR to throw the caution with a crash and Harvick further double-downed on having more consistent late-race calls. 

Despite the numerous ongoing conversations around NASCAR and its consistency, Nate Ryan on the Hauler Talk podcast explained something that might have been overlooked: “ I don’t understand how NASCAR can be consistent if it’s going to vary track to track. If Atlanta is different from Daytona in terms of dispatching safety vehicles, in terms of the length of the track, it’s you know, people want consistency, but you can give them consistency on these kinds of calls if every track is different. And by definition, every track in NASCAR is different.”

It’s just difficult to call a race let’s say if we are to compare a superspeedway track to a short oval. Or short-oval to a road course. NASCAR isn’t hard-pressed on one rule or idea of one size fits all just because venues and racing differ from track to track. Ryan further vented his frustration with MLB examples. “It’s like saying we’re gonna have consistent ground rules from Yankee Stadium to Wrigley Field to Fenway Park. It’s not possible. It’s it’s not possible when you have stadiums and venues of wildly divergent, dimensions.”

But how exactly is Daytona different from Atlanta in terms of emergency responses? And what factors into NASCAR’s decision-making process like the one they called out last Sunday? Well, Amanda Ellis did her homework and further. 

Reasoning behind two different calls to end races at Daytona and Atlanta

The argument both Hamlin and Harvick made was that they wanted NASCAR to ensure the safety of a race car driver. We have seen how horrifying late-race crashes at superspeedways can be. For instance, there’s Austin Dillon’s 2015 Daytona crash and Corey LaJoie at Talladega last year where he ended the race with no wheels of his race car touching the track.

This makes you wonder why the Daytona 500 was allowed to stay green and why the Ambetter Health 400 was flagged for caution on the last lap. As it turns out there are different safety protocols and resources that NASCAR has to work with at this different track, despite sharing the superspeedway package. And this explanation by Ellis further highlighted how tricky it is for race control to make consistent calls every weekend.

“Let’s take Daytona, let’s take Atlanta. Daytona has a total of nine cutouts that we have access to. Safety vehicles, also areas where cars can get off the track. So if you have an incident and a car needs to get to safety, again there are nine cutouts at Daytona. Going to Atlanta there are four. So that is a big difference, nine in Daytona, four in Atlanta and that alone calling those two races in my opinion very challenging.” She explained.

Truth be told we might see the race at COTA stay green even if there are multiple wrecks at different parts of the rack on a late-race restart. And it’s just hard to see NASCAR stick with a thumb rule to end the race with a caution or letting the driver race to the checkered flag.