Rick Hendrick’s Star Employee Puts NASCAR’s Intervening Autonomy on Blast With Bold Verdict

NASCAR’s decision to drop the red flag just as the rain started at New Hampshire hasn’t been well received. Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Bubba Wallace were among those who voiced their displeasure at the race being halted with 82 laps to go. Joining them in questioning NASCAR officials’ actions on how the situation was handled, was the crew chief of Rick Hendrick’s #24 car, Rudy Fugle.

In the middle of the third stage, the red flags were waved due to rainfall and lightning in the area. As a result, the race was paused for a while, until NASCAR determined that it was safe enough to resume. Rudy Fugle endured a relatively rough day in the office. As it happened, William Byron could only muster a P26 finish after encountering a number of issues.

While race winner Christopher Bell was happy with NASCAR officiating, most of the grid wasn’t and Fugle knows where he stands on the matter.

Crew Chief of #24, Fugle told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, “I do think you’re going to have to have the sanctioning body call it, ‘This is an official wet race. We aren’t going back.’ There’s a couple of things that you’re going to have to decide on, because you’ll get yourselves into situations where we won’t know — you know, because yesterday, we could’ve called it, ‘Hey, this is a damp race, you can come put rains on,’ well before the lightning came.”

NASCAR waited out a nearly two-hour, 15-minute rain delay in the final stage of Sunday’s race and mandated teams run the final laps on wet weather tires. Twice under caution, it allowed teams to put on new sets of wets with non-competitive pit stops, but they never felt the track dried enough to allow teams to return to slick tires.

Elaborating his stance on allowing teams some form of autonomy such decisions, Fugle said, “Because, yesterday, we could have called, ‘Hey this is a damp race, you can come put rains on,’ well before the lightning came. We knew there was a window there where we could have ran another 20 minutes or so before the lightning came. where the track was wet. You’ll get that situation, where the lightning’s coming, they know it and we don’t.”

All that Rudy Fugle wanted was for the teams to have a little more control over strategy. The #24 crew chief pointed out that there was an opportunity for the teams to get the right strategy before the storm hit. Furthermore, the drivers could have had some more track action, but NASCAR was unwilling to take the risk. Dale Earnhardt Jr. was one of those, who was not pleased with NASCAR’s decision to stop the race when rain had just began to fall.

Taking to X, he tweeted, “No umbrellas in the interviews with @TylerReddick. Seems the exact scenario for this particular rain tire. I’m not there. Feels like we should be racing tho.” Indeed, both Junior and Fugle have reason to be frustrated. With wet-weather tires in place, there was a strong chance of completing another 30-40 laps. As the race came to a standstill, Bubba Wallace also tweeted, “What rain tires…” sarcastically hinting at NASCAR’s decision to not put wet-weather tires to use straightaway.

Due to this, Fugle wanted the officials to be less staunch in their response and allow each team to have a more freedom, and choose which tires they’d like to utilize, and when.

Fugle wants greater autonomy for drivers about tire and pit decisions

According to Rudy Fugle, during the races, if a driver suffered because of poor tire wear, they should be allowed to get another set. “I definitely think there’s a lot more openness, where the teams and the drivers can be in control, for probably 80% of the decisions that need to be made,” he added.

This would be especially useful when some are trying to charge up through the pack. The HMS crew chief further noted that if teams were permitted to switch to slick tires, then the race could have been even more interesting. To that end, he is also a firm believer that the driver and the team should have some control over strategy.

However, on the contrary, NASCAR believes NHMS was a great success when it comes to short-track races. “I think what we the way we started this whole wet weather tire process was basically we wanted to get our races started on time and it really played into our hand (Saturday) to get the Xfinity race started on time and to get our races back to green as quick as possible if we had a delay like today,” said Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, after the race.

At the end of the day, things did not work out the way Fugle hoped for his Rick Hendrick-backed driver. With some mixed signals after the New Hampshire wet-weather tire use, it will be interesting to see what strategy NASCAR puts into place, if the need arises and whether they would pay attention to Fugle’s suggestions.