Kyle Busch was deemed to have not been in the second overtime crash on Sunday night at Nashville Superspeedway and retained his fourth place running position as a result.
However, it was a puzzling decision as Busch both slowed down to not run into Ross Chastain, spun by Kyle Larson, but also bounced off the wall as he veered right to avoid the incident. NASCAR rules stated that drivers must maintain a reasonable speed to retain their position but he also hit the wall.
NASCAR entry lists for Downtown Chicago
NASCAR Cup Series managing director Brad Moran explained the rationale during a Tuesday morning SiriusXM NASCAR Radio appearance.
“His spots weren’t taken away because our rule clearly states that you must maintain a reasonable speed,” Moran said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “And reasonable speed is for what track conditions are at the time. We don’t want to encourage drivers to stay on the gas and just kind of, you know, bang their way through. What (Busch) did was he avoided the incident.
“We deemed him not involved in that incident. He didn’t stop. If he had to stop, he probably would have ended up towards the back of the field, but he was scored in the fourth-place position when that caution come out. He didn’t get into (Ross Chastain) or (Kyle Larson) and made very slight contact with the wall, so we would deem that as not being involved in that incident and that’s why he was able to restart where he was scored.”
Moran said scoring loops were used to determine the exact running order he was running in sans the car involved.
“It was loop No. 4, and that was the last loop the leaders were scored on,” Moran said. “Really, it comes down to, ‘Do we determine him being involved in that wreck?’ and we did not determine being him involved in the wreck. We determined he avoided being in the wreck.”
That was despite hitting the wall.
Busch was spun on the next restart, when Larson stacked up the field from the outside row, hitting the wall and running out of gas as a result. It ended his race and he finished 27th.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.
