NASCAR Insiders Claim Crew Chiefs Not Happy With Lack of Cautions in the Race

After the Federated Auto Parts 400 in Richmond, fans and drivers were left exhausted and frustrated. Drivers were losing their cool as they were conditioned to racing in boiling temperatures. Despite the scorching heat, a day of almost clean racing meant a boring day for the fans.

There were very few cautions, and a large part of the race was run under the green flag. Siding with the fans are several crew chiefs who voiced their disappointment.  

Another short race, another snooze fest

On a recent episode of the NASCAR on NBC podcast, pit reporter Kim Coon stated that the bone of contention among most crew chiefs revolved around tire strategy and management since so much of the race was contested under green flag conditions.

“All the talk I had with crew chiefs was about tires and because it went green for so much of the race, they didn’t have the opportunity to play even more tire strategies than we could have seen if there had been more cautions.

“Every crew chief I talked to that morning said they wished they had at least two more sets of tires which is funny because I think the teams that made the most stops either were right on the line and using all their tires maybe even had one more set, some of them, so, just the nature of how the race played out with so much green flag racing,” Coon said.

The NASCAR pit reporter also said that while there were a lot of intriguing strategies on display, there would have been more to look forward to had there been more cautions.

“Yes, we did see strategy but not as much as we would have seen if we have had a myriad of cautions and crew chiefs were having to decide, ‘Alright, do we put our qualifying scuffs on at this point? Do we save a set and stay out?’ So that was a lot of the talk in the morning is what that could look like, you know if we have had a caution in the first stage, that first 70-lap stage.

“A lot of the teams had talked about putting on their qualifying scuffs to save a set. All of that really not playing out because of how many green flag runs we had,” she added.

While Coon made a good point, there are some who believe that the green flag racing brought out team strategies that would not have been possible had there been too many cautions. One such person is NASCAR spotter Brett Griffin.

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On a recent episode of the Door Bumper Clear podcast, Kaulig Racing spotter Brett Griffin said that they were all for green flag racing strategies, which would have the teams and drivers thinking about tire degradation and when to come into the pits for a change.

“We’re here for it. We want high tire-wear, we want high horsepower, we want the cars to be able to be racier than what they’ve been and so I thought it was pretty cool that we had a Richmond where strategy played out,” he said.

Griffin also said that there might not have been a lot of cautions but Richmond was a good race regardless, contrary to popular opinion. He said that the drivers had to work really hard as they had to keep that intensity up throughout the length of the race, which was not the case a couple of decades ago.

“It shows you how hard they’re trying because I came up in the 90s and the 2000s where they’d go out there and ride around at 80-90%, save their equipment, try to keep track position, and that last fuel run, it was balls to the wall. Now it’s balls to the wall the whole race so I thought Richmond was a great race, we had a lot of strategy play out. You know, obviously not a lot of natural cautions but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad race.”

Was the Richmond race a snooze fest? Had it been a better spectacle if there were more cautions? Or was green flag racing just as interesting in terms of team strategies? Let us know in the comments section.

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