In real time, it looked like Chris Buescher had won the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday at Kansas Speedway as his car number shot to the top of the scoring pylon after the finish line and the broadcast showed the same result.
It was only after an official review of the finish, that took about a minute, that NASCAR declared Kyle Larson the winner of the race.
As a matter of due diligence, Scott Graves, the crew chief of Buescher and their Roush Fenway Keselowski Racing No. 17 met with series officials in the infield hauler to get a clarification. He received what everyone in the media received too.
To a certain degree, the finish line is ceremonial, which is important because the line at Kansas Speedway is crooked and has been painted over several times. In the example of a photo finish, NASCAR uses a camera installed on pit road across from the line and effectively has a laser that points directly into the wall.
Like a touchdown, the winner is determined by who breaks the plane first and that camera effectively showed that Larson was well past the line by time Buescher himself crossed it. Well past, of course, is relative when talking about the closest finish in NASCAR Cup Series history at 0.001 seconds.
Here is the decisive image.
It’s also an explanation that Graves accepted afterwards.
“They showed us the picture of it and it is what it is,” Graves told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports. “It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, but as much as all these races are you’ve got to at least question it and make sure your understanding of everything going on there and be able to accept that decision. So we did.”
Graves asked about the crooked line on the track and was told how their system works.
“I mean they showed us the picture they create using the lasers,” Graves said. “We were just wondering if they were using the painted line or not. They don’t, it’s actually they have a photosystem that is a lot more accurate than that.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.