Pit road troubles might derail Chase Elliott’s hopes of winning the regular-season championship. After being penalized for speeding on the pit road at Pocono last weekend, the driver was again reprimanded by NASCAR for flaunting the blend line off the pit road to the racetrack. The penalty at the HighPoint.Com 400 came as a result of him exiting pit road third in what was to have been his last stop of the day.

It was in a section where nearly the entire field was found to be going too fast before the race when all the cars went down pit road to check their tachometer readings. So, when asked about the Pocono speeding infraction, Elliott admitted he still had questions. “I still don’t know, to be honest with you,” he said two days before the Brickyard 400. “I haven’t gotten a straight answer. You’re not going to get a straight answer from the NASCAR front, which is fine. But yeah, it was a bummer.”

What went wrong for Chase Elliott as he got behind the wheel in Indianapolis?

Crew chief Alan Gustafson was left in disbelief on the team’s radio after the penalty. He said, “I need an explanation from an official why we’re getting a penalty.”

Irate with the decision, Chase Elliott went on an explicit rant, as he said, “I mean, what the f***. They sent out the f*cking sheet, and I did exactly what it said to do.” But it turns out that NASCAR clearly stated that drivers will have to use the warm-up lane until the exit of turn 2.

But what took place leading up to it? Denny Hamlin decided to split the stage with a strategy, and Chase Elliott decided to follow his lead. Larson followed Elliott, but Larson didn’t venture out as far as Elliott did. Larson crossed the first white line and nudged his right-side tires onto the second line, but NASCAR didn’t consider him to be off the racing surface.

However, when Chase Elliott exited the pit road using the blend lines, he overstepped his bounds and ended up on the track before the official exit. The officials promptly handed the No. 9 team a drive-thru penalty, which could seriously impact Elliott’s Brickyard 400 results.

The familiarity of the rule? Even the race winner, Kyle Larson, didn’t know. In a post-race interaction when asked about the rule, Larson said. “None of us knew what the rule was. I don’t think NASCAR initially knew what the rule was because then we started kind of getting communication with them.”

Elliott and Brad Keselowski were the only drivers penalized for the blend line violation during the race, so others figured out the rule was recently introduced. Larson stated, “I think it was Saturday probably before the Xfinity race, I think they had released the rule.” However, later, to provide a better understanding of the new rule, a NASCAR spokesperson posted on social media a portion of the updated rule sent to drivers.

The rule stated: “Returning to the track while exiting the pits, vehicles must use the acceleration lane through the exit of Turn 2. Check your mirrors and come up the racetrack. You may swing wide beyond the white line on the acceleration lane between Turns 1 and 2. Stay off the racing surface.”

As much as Chase Elliott is furious about losing his run at the Brickyard 400, it was an enjoyable race for fans as they were having a field day trying to share their opinions on the same. Needless to say, there were comments questioning NASCAR’s officiating patterns and its inconsistencies.

NASCAR fans find loopholes for Chase Elliott!

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Jeff Gluck shared the document that was released to the drivers. Reading that, one fan pointed out, “You may swing wide beyond the white line.”

There was no mention of not crossing the apron or the blend line that was within the confines of the racetrack in the document. Therefore, claiming negligence on NASCAR’s part, another fan wrote, “You may swing wide beyond the white line” is not good wording when there is several white lines.”

The penalty affected Elliot and set him back, though he began the race third. He and Keselowski had to serve pass-through penalties under green. Nevertheless, Elliot was back in the top 5 at the race’s 72nd lap. He finished 10th. But the penalty hurt Keselowski more by putting him a lap down. This forced him to pursue the alternate lap 102 pit strategy. Keselowski ultimately finished 21st.

Some even argued that NASCAR overlooked a similar infringement by Kyle Larson, and he was let off the hook. “Way to go it seems like they’re just picking and choosing who to penalize. They know people don’t like Brad and they did this to a piece of people I believe because people think they only did it to Chase Elliot because why didn’t they do it to Kyle Larson?”

Well, because of this, Kyle Larson won his first-career Brickyard 400 win.

NASCAR Cup Series Brickyard 400 race top 5 finishes:

Abrupt caution calls, made-up rules, and improvising at times on the racetrack. NASCAR has been inconsistent when it comes to following its rule book and once again failed to exercise a fair ruling at Brickyard 400. A fan was quick to blame NASCAR, as they wrote, “Sounds like NASCAR doesn’t know its own rules.”

Although fans understood what NASCAR was trying to convey in their rule book, they still felt that such explanations left the door open for confusion and chaos. “NASCAR should be smart enough to leave no gray area, yet they do that every week. That’s just sad.” 

Well, seems like NASCAR needs to be more clear with their rules. What do you think?