“Too Much on the Line” – Brett Griffin & Freddie Kraft on How NASCAR Avoided “Egg on the Face” By Finishing the Race at Daytona

In a recent podcast on Dale Earnhardt Jr’s Door Bumper Clear, Brett Griffin and Freddie Kraft talked about NASCAR’s recent decision at Daytona. The Coke Zero Sugar 400 was interrupted by rain and a multi-car crash due to the wet track.

Many NASCAR enthusiasts, including the drivers in the race, criticized the governing body’s decision of continuing the race. And spotters Brett Griffin and Freddie Kraft expressed their views about the same in the podcast. 

After the race, Stuart Haas’ Kevin Harvick said that he was leading at the time of the caution. However, since Austin Dillon was ahead at the time of the red flag, he was declared the winner. Explaining how Harvick drove into the wreck and got passed by cars, Freddie Kraft said that due to this his momentum slowed down. 

To this, Brett Griffin replied that since there was no reasonably defined speed, Harvick ‘hung his hat’ thinking the race was over due to the rain.  However, the race was not over. Griffin further explained that NASCAR realized they needed to go back to green and finish this race. He thinks that they did it in order to protect the integrity of the playoff. And also the integrity of this particular race.

READ MORE:Freddie Kraft Points to “More Work” NASCAR Has to Do After Massive Wreck Which “Knocked the Wind Out” of Bubba Wallace and Denny Hamlin at Daytona

Freddie Kraft added that there was no way NASCAR was not completing the race. Explaining that no matter how long the race went on, NASCAR was going to finish it the same day. He said, “Because there was no way they were gonna let all the highlights all week be ‘Hey! Here’s a NASCAR race this week. The whole field went into turn 1 and spun out in a wreck because we didn’t call caution for rain.’”

Agreeing that this is how NASCAR approached the situation, Brett Griffin said; “I was sitting at the airport and I literally thought to myself  I would wait till tomorrow to finish this if I had to.”

Pointing out that there was already “Too much on the line,” the two of them discussed the reason behind NASCAR’s decision. Kraft said, “You have egg on your face if you let sports center show highlights of your entire field wrecking because you didn’t throw a caution.”  He also complained that this was no way to determine a regular season winner. 

What Freddie Kraft and Brett Griffin think this might lead to

Talking about the repercussions of this decision, Brett Griffin said, “I mean it changes the whole playoff field, instantly -right there. (Martin) Truex was in and (Ryan) Blaney is out if you don’t go and finish this race. Obviously, Austin Dillon (was) declared the winner of the race. Kudos to those guys. But he did not deserve to win the race the way that he would have won it had it kept raining because it was bullcrap. We tore millions of dollars of race cars because of rain.”

It was clear that NASCAR had no reasonable basis for judgment. And talking about this, Kraft said, “There was no way you were gonna have this argument about Kevin Harvick saying. ‘You know you don’t have a defined reasonable speed. I didn’t slow down that much. I should be winning the race.’”

Adding to Kraft’s contention, Griffin said that it all gets better when Austin Dillon makes it to the final in Phoenix. Talking about how other players might feel about it, he said; “They’ll be like this guy shouldn’t even be in this thing. I mean they had to do what they did…” 

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Thinking if something like this would happen, Freddie Kraft immediately said, “Wouldn’t that be crazy?” But Griffin explained that this is what NASCAR is setting itself up for by finishing the race.