Generally speaking, when the red flag comes out in a motorsports event, that means the field is to immediately comes to a stop.
Unfortunately for Brad Keselowski, leading the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona during a red flag with 63 laps remaining, he started to smell smoke and believed his RFK Racing No. 6 Ford Mustang was started to catch fire. The only option available to him was to drive under the apron under red, where he proceeded to drive in circle until the smoke dissipated, confusing both his fellow competitors and NASCAR Race Control.
Ultimately, the tower chose not to penalize him and he resumed the race as the leader, ultimately pushing teammate Chris Buescher to his third win on the season.
“I was sitting there under red flag, it just started smoking really big out of the left front rocker panel,” Keselowski said after the race. “I knew that meant it was about to catch fire and I was going to get knocked out of the race.
“The only way to stop that was to get air moving through the car. Being under red flag, I had to improvise. There was a pad at the bottom of the racetrack. I knew I couldn’t drive around the racetrack without getting in serious trouble, but I figured I could get away with driving on that pad.
“I just ran on that pad until the flames and the smoke disappeared and called it good.”
What caused it?
“It’s hard to say,” Keselowski said. “Most likely it came from the foam insulation overheating as the car was sitting with stagnant air. Hard to say if some of the foam broke up in the race and dropped on the exhaust or if the exhaust cracked. There’s a number of things that could have caused it. It’s not really fair for me to speculate.
“Once it happened, I knew I had to do everything I could to fix it or the car was going to catch flames and burn down to the ground and we were going to be out of the race.”
The argument has been made throughout the garage that Keselowski should have been subject to some kind of penalty. After all, the rules call for cars to stop under red flag conditions.
Section 8.5.3.1 of the NASCAR Rule Book, detailing red flag regulations, doesn’t really offer a concrete prohibition of what Keselowski ultimately did:
At the discretion of NASCAR, the Race may be stopped at any time it is determined the racetrack is not suitable for Competition. Vehicles must be brought to a stop in an area designated by NASCAR. Unless otherwise determined by the Series Managing Director, vehicles must not enter pit road under red flag conditions. At the discretion of the Series Managing Director, failure to follow the red flag procedures may result in a penalty up to and including the vehicle being parked for the remainder of the Race.
Keselowski did not enter pit road, did not receive service from the crew, and failure to follow the procedures may result in a penalty as opposed to will result in a penalty.
During a Tuesday morning segment on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, the leaguer’s Senior Vice President of competition, Elton Sawyer detailed the reason behind the lack of a penalty for Keselowski.
“Obviously, we are under red flag conditions and our pace car driver, when he was making laps there, noticed there was smoke coming out from under the 6 car,” Sawyer said. “I don’t know that we actually witnessed any fire but there was smoke.
“You have to give Brad some credit for his creativity there, that he starts doing circles. We look up from the tower and are wondering what he’s doing, what is going on, and as that all unfolded.
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.