“I still feel like we’ve got a lot of work to do here before we can think of going beyond.” Dale Jr.’s verdict for NASCAR’s international trip to Mexico was simple. He wanted the sport to work on its operations in the US before going abroad. But now, with preparations for the race going in full swing, Junior has made his peace with it. Instead, there is a different concern that he seems focused on. How will NASCAR officiate the road course race?

Going by their work during the Circuit of The Americas weekend, it certainly doesn’t look positive. But before we understand what Junior worried, let’s first take a look at what went wrong.

Turn 6 at COTA revealed a lack of preparation on the part of NASCAR’s officiating, not the drivers. While some teams conformed to presumptive bounds only to discover too late that there were none, others realized early that the corner wasn’t being policed. A road course race became a competition to see who could adjust the fastest due to the lack of clear instructions, and drivers began cutting said corner.

On the podcast Dale Jr. Download, Junior didn’t mince his words. “It became clear on Sunday during the Cup Race which I wanted to talk to you about. The turn 6 we saw teams cutting there and then the TV and the drivers everybody seemed to realize ‘Oh! they’re not governing it, Are they not governing turn 6?’ What is your opinion about turning 6? Did NASCAR make it clear that they were not going to have track limits in that corner? Before the race?”, Dale Earnhardt Jr. asked why certain drivers took advantage of Turn 6 right away while others lost time before catching on.

“I am watching SVG and a couple of other drivers who were cutting that corner a lot early, I am watching it without sound, I was in a meeting but I’m thinking he seems to know something that others don’t. My question is, was there information that they would not govern 6 out there before the race started? Were there drivers that did their homework and drivers that didn’t?” he added.

At Turn 6, Shane van Gisbergen, Joey Logano, and Chris Buescher pushed past the curb from the drop of the green flag, cutting the track without any repercussions. In the meantime, drivers who initially expected NASCAR to enforce track rules, including Denny Hamlin, Chase Elliott, and Kyle Busch, held their lines. With no penalties being dished out Hamlin wasn’t happy. “In six, if someone shortcut it, you would see it. You’d see it on TV right away. Maybe they just did not want to go through the criticism of not getting every single car that did it. But to their credit, after practice, they would send screenshots of everyone who would be called shortcutting in the race. They gave us all warnings Saturday night, saying, ‘Here’s your car in practice, this will be a penalty tomorrow.'” Even more direct was Kyle Busch, who said, “They ain’t got a clue.”

NASCAR never intervened to level the playing field since the advantage had already been stolen. This is not the first time a race has been affected by unclear officiating. Pit road penalties, restart zones, and out-of-bounds decisions at superspeedways have all been inconsistent for NASCAR. The lack of openness before the race is the problem, not simply the enforcement. For what it was worth, NASCAR tried to apologize. Cup Series director Brad Moran said, “It is our responsibility to make sure all the competitors understand. We won’t make the same mistake twice. We caught on a team scanner that they weren’t sure about Turn 6. We dealt with it as quickly as we could” 

Teams would have all approached the corner in the same manner if they had known beforehand. Rather, the first person to catch on determined the early laps. With the next road course race in Mexico, Dale Jr. didn’t just ask questions, but proposed “Here’s what I would do TJ, I would call your buddy at NASCAR I would say ‘Hey man are there any corners in Mexico that are gonna have track limits’ and see what he tells you, and if he is like ‘I don’t know yet or probably not or whatever he’s gonna say, I would keep pressing for more details,” he proposed. 

With the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez playing host to NASCAR’s Mexico visit, track limits will be key. The first two turns of the track usually see Formula 1 cars that annually race at the track go off quite frequently, and with this being drivers’ first visit to the track, the chances of violating track limits are incredibly high. The issue is that teams must even ask Junior’s question. The situation might recur if NASCAR doesn’t specify circuit limitations before Mexico, with some drivers gaining an advantage early and others wasting laps. It certainly won’t be the first time this season NASCAR’s inconsistency has caused problems for drivers.

NASCAR’s Horror Show in 2025

Now, it’s not the first time NASCAR has been accused of unfair rulings. If fans go back to the Daytona 500’s Duel 2, Erik Jones had his win taken away. It was fair, fans thought. After all, the caution flag came out right when Jones was about to cross the line. Cut to the race when a terrifying crash unfolded on the last lap and William Byron crossed the finish line, except there was no caution flag.

Just a few weeks later, during the Bennett Transportation & Logistics 250, the Xfinity race, NASCAR allowed drivers to race to the line without a caution despite a last-lap crash, similar to the Daytona 500, but just a day later at the Ambetter Health 500, there was a caution that flew in the last lap.

As Jeff Gluck put it, “

The problem is most fans didn’t know what to expect based on the previous rulings over the last 10 days. If everyone from fans to drivers knew what was coming due to a consistent policy played out in repeated examples over time, it would be much easier to accept.” NASCAR has a big task on their hands, and with the Cup Series action heating up, consistency is what both the fans and drivers would like to see.