NASCAR News: Kevin Harvick Slams ‘Consistency’ After Brickyard 400 – ‘Badly Missed Call’

At the Brickyard 400 held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, an uneventful race ended with a sharp stab of controversy after driver Ryan Preece spun out in Turn 2. Struggling with a lack of fuel in the tank and a flat tire, Preece’s car became completely immobile. Despite race leader Kyle Larson having already claimed the white flag, indicating the final lap was underway, NASCAR officials threw the caution flag, effectively ending the race under caution conditions.

Seasoned driver Kevin Harvick took his annoyance public on his podcast, Happy Hour, where he vocally criticized NASCAR’s handling of the situation, disputing the timing of the caution, suggesting that it should have been called when Preece’s car came to a stop.

“I just believe that was a missed call. A badly missed call,” Harvick said.

“I thought the call at the end of our race was not good. When Preece spun out, he was mid-pack. He wound up nosing into the fence barely and the tire was flat. He was on the rub blocks, the tire was flat, he was not going anywhere. And they waited and waited and waited and he wasn’t moving sitting up on the racetrack. The caution should have been thrown in Turn 4. And it just doesn’t seem there’s as much consistency as there needs to be when it comes to these calls at the end of the race. Whether you throw a caution or not throw a caution.

“I didn’t like how the race ended with the caution not being thrown. … Whoever was watching that needs to be talked to. Because the tire was down… it was sitting on the rub blocks. And when they sit on the rub blocks, they don’t move,” he added.

In response, Elton Sawyer, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition, defended the timing of the caution during an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

“For our fans, our goal at every event is to finish under green. That is what our goal is going into the weekend. But there’s circumstances that happened on the last lap at Indy. And I will go back to last year at Pocono, very similar situation with the same car,” Sawyer explained. “I might add, the 41. Both, we’re trying to give that car every opportunity to get started, get rolling and let the race end naturally. As we came off Turn 4 and coming to the start-finish line for the white flag [at Indy], it’s a two-and-a-half-mile racetrack, so you still have a lot of racing that can happen. As the cars started to get off in Turn 1, you’re starting to get closer to having to make a decision. That’s our process. That’s our mindset.

“The same as it was last year at Pocono. I believe the 41 had spun there in the tunnel turn. Again, you give … the drivers every opportunity to get going but also the guys that are leading … As they are racing, you can’t let them race through a situation where you’ve got a car stopped on the racetrack. So that was our decision process and how we kind of digest that very quickly. I might add we have now had the opportunity for 24 hours, 48 hours to kind of digest it. And I still go back and think our race director did a really good job in the way he managed that.”