September 26, 2022 | By Lee Spencer

NASCAR needs to shore up officiating in the Playoffs

With 65 laps remaining at Texas Motor Speedway, the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing team believed they had the car, the driver and the strategy to win the AutoTrader Echo Park Automotive 500.

That was before William Byron punted Denny Hamlin into the frontstretch grass during the record-breaking 14th caution triggered by then race-leader Martin Truex Jr. wrecked in Turn 3.

Hamlin, crew chief Chris Gabehart and spotter Chris Lambert were stunned. That emotion quickly ramped up to fury when NASCAR officials made no move to rectify the situation.

“I haven't seen a replay, but the 24 dumped us under caution,” said Gabehart over the radio. “Good grief. The man wrecks you under caution and he gets no penalty? What are they doing?”

Hamlin, 41, restarted 19th for the final 38 laps. Two cautions and a checkered flag later, Hamlin recovered with a 10th-place result. It wasn’t until after the race that NASCAR acknowledged the possibility of misconduct on the part of Byron, who was angered by, as he saw it, Hamlin ran him out of room in Turn 2.

“I think the crew chief (Gabehart) was wanting something,” Hamlin said in terms of officiating the incident. “I guess we can just wreck each other under caution. I tried to wreck him back. I don't think we touched. I got to look. I don't think we touched.

“Obviously, he sent us into the infield under caution.”

NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition Scott Miller claimed that the sanctioning body didn’t see the incident. They were focused on Truex’s wreck.

“When we were in the tower, we were paying more attention to the actual cause of the caution up there and dispatching our equipment,” Miller told the media following the race. “The William Byron-Denny Hamlin thing, we had no eyes on. We saw Denny go through the grass.”

Despite eight laps of caution to review the Byron-Hamlin feud, Miller said there wasn’t ample time to ascertain cause and effect—let alone penalize Byron for shipping Hamlin’s Fed Ex ride into the grass.

“By the time we got to a replay that showed the incident well enough to do anything to it, we’d gone back to green. I’m not sure that that issue is completely resolved as of yet. So, we’ll be looking at that when we get back to work.”

Attending to the issue this week does not assuage the ire ignited in the No. 11 team, nor does it rectify the potential loss felt. This was not a balls-or-strikes call. Byron ran into Hamlin under caution. When Kyle Busch intentionally wrecked Ron Hornaday Jr. under caution at Texas in a truck race 11 years earlier, NASCAR made an example of him by first parking the No. 18 truck and then suspending the driver.

Busch tweeted after the race: “No penalty for this?! Depends on who you are I see”

Kevin Harvick also chimed in, addressing not only the Byron-Hamlin incident but Ty Gibbs turning the wheel into a fellow competitor on pit road.

“All of these situations should be handled during the race,” Harvick said via Twitter. “Just like F1 “under investigation” works at any point of the race, you issue a penalty and move on. That way when you “don’t see it” you can still handle (it) during the event.”

Clearly, there could be Playoff implications for Hamlin, who remains sixth in the standings. He’s currently eight points above the cutoff line but with Talladega Superspeedway looming large on Sunday followed by the Roval at Charlotte to determine the Round of 8, Hamlin needs every point he can secure over the next two races.

Byron on the other hand, finished seventh. The 24-year-old Hendrick Motorsports driver is currently third in the standings, 17 points above the bubble. Byron defended his actions by claiming that Hamlin ran into him hard enough to bent the toe link of the No. 24 Chevrolet, despite his rival insisting there was no contact.

“We are lucky we finished,” Byron said. “It was really hard contact. It wasn’t like a light contact or something like that. I obviously didn’t mean to spin him out over there, but I am obviously mad and just not going to get raced like that. We have always raced so well together and I don’t know what it was all about.

“…He chose to run me out of racetrack completely. And again, look, it was not like it was light contact and I thought we were going to be done.”

Byron accepted responsibility for what came next during the Lap 279 caution.

“I went to go show my displeasure and I didn’t mean to spin him out,” Byron said. “There are a ton of guys that do this and go do something like that…see it all the time.

“But I am just not going to get run like that and there is really no reason. I mean we are running second and third, I think, and had a shot to win, and it killed our car for sure. That was a bummer.”

Regardless of the incident that triggered Byron’s retaliation, his actions deserved to be addressed. While I can appreciate Byron standing up for himself, given the dangerous nature of racing—and the uncertainty of the new car—NASCAR cannot have its competitors using 3,200-pound vehicles as ramrods.