It left drivers confused, frustrated and angry – well, most of the drivers except for race victor Joey Logano, who walked away with an additional $1 million.
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CONCORD, N.C. (AP) – Say this about NASCAR’s confusing and chaotic Sprint All-Star Race: At least it was entertaining.
And the format came through, although it didn’t go as planned.
Kyle Larson took the race lead soon after a restart for the final 13-lap segment and ran up front until Logano got beside him and battled with him side-by-side in the closing laps.
The most impressive move of the weekend came when Bayne split Ryan Blaney and Chase Elliott, going three-wide to win the first segment of the Showdown.
Following the race I talked to Dale Earnhardt Jr. “Wave-around cars were up front and in the middle, but NASCAR did a good job of sorting the lineups out. So, I had to do everything I could do to get to the start/finish line in first, and luckily it paid off”.
“I don’t know how you can get much more compelling racing than what we saw today”, Keselowski continued. I don’t know, I feel bad. “That was probably part of it”. You have to expect certain circumstances are going to happen in this type of race.
The latest running of NASCAR’s annual showcase was lambasted by drivers and fans for its new format, yet it still produced one of the most memorable all-star races in a very long time.
“It’s the dumbest damn thing I’ve ever been a part of”, three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart said after getting caught up in an accident where he felt he should have been higher in the field if not for how NASCAR scored him. He eventually took the lead on Lap 94 and was the race leader after 100 laps had been completed to end the second segment.
Or they could just sort of figure it out as it goes along, which would be totally understandable because this race is pretty complicated.
Those scenarios Junior mentioned happened in the first segment of the race. Matt Hagan won in Funny Car, and Jason Line topped Pro Stock.
After winning segments, drivers dropped out of the event per a NASCAR rule, already earning spots in the All-Star Race. At that time, Kenseth had the field a lap down, but NASCAR penalized him a lap for not making a green-flag stop during the first segment.
The scoring confusion is the only explanation for the craziness that ensued.
The second 50-lap segment also required a minimum two-tire pit stop under green before the 35th lap of the segment.
“It’s just very unfortunate that this situation cropped up and a lot of people walked away from here disappointed”, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller said.
“We ran into a situation where our race procedures didn’t give us the opportunity for a waive-around”, Miller told a group of reporters outside of the NASCAR hauler after the race.
He’s not wrong. Everyone deserves a better format than what we’ve had.
It also produced an aggressive race that ended with a thrilling finish.
When Carolina Panthers tight end Greg Olsen drew the envelope that inverted 11 cars, that put Johnson and Busch first and second, on old tires. So the confusion clearly wasn’t limited to those in the cockpits of the cars. It opened with four-wide insanity at 180 miles per hour and it closed with one-time wunderkind Logano racing door-to-door with current wunderkind Kyle Larson, until Larson ran out of room and plowed the outside wall with two laps remaining.
The confusion was widespread, as several drivers radioed their teams asking exactly what was going on. Hi, #CarlEdwards!That was … interesting. pic.twitter.com/fIVsK4kaEICautions were aplenty in the second segment, including a major wreck with 26 laps to go.
Despite the nuttiness – which snowballed when Kenseth’s penalty got combined with abnormal officiating – the format itself wasn’t a disaster.
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Rain forced the cancellation of qualifying earlier in the evening but Busch and Harvick traded the lead back and forth before Harvick finally was able to clear Busch to take over sole possession of the lead by lap 10. “It seems like the package and the tire is definitely better to pass with than what we had before”.
