NASCAR shouldn't restart its restart officiating during the Chase
The recipe for success in the Chase is going to be the same as it was in the first 26 races of the 2015 season. Among a ton of factors, drivers will need fast cars, great pit stops (especially in the later laps of the race) and really good restarts.
The order above may not be the order of importance of the listed attributes. Given yet another example of a restart that may not have been kosher in the waning laps at Richmond, getting a good jump on the final restart may be the most important thing a driver can do all race.
During the final restart at Richmond, race-winner Matt Kenseth – who had the dominant car of the night and likely would have won regardless – got a great jump and pulled away from the field. Perhaps, as some drivers may feel, it was too great. Though it wasn't according to NASCAR. Kenseth wasn't penalized.
The sanctioning body has been especially lenient when it comes to its double-file restarts recently. At each track, a zone is marked on the outside wall. At some point within that restart zone, the leader is allowed to accelerate and lead the field back to the green flag.
As you can imagine, drivers have figured out just how far they can stretch the boundaries of the restart zone. And that goes for more than just the leader on restarts as well. Since a driver in second place knows the leader is theoretically supposed to accelerate within a certain area, he can manipulate his position relative to the car.
The gamesmanship has been upped given NASCAR's seeming reluctance to call a penalty. Given what happened at Richmond – and the increased importance of track position as cars are harder and harder to pass – restarts were a hot topic at Thursday's Chase media day.
“Most of the time, let’s be honest, you can jump it by a car length and it is okay but you can’t jump it by four, five or six car-lengths," Joey Logano said of the fine-line and fine art of restart manipulation. "That is not okay in my opinion. There is always gamesmanship out there and everyone is trying to beat the car next to you or in front of you. The way you do that as the leader pulling up to the line and the second place car is laid back is just as big of an issue as the leader jumping the start because that forces the leader to jump the start when the second place car is laid back so much.
"The control car is no longer the control car, it becomes the second place car because he controls when the leader can go. Just as important as when the leader takes off is that the second place car is where he is supposed to be, side by side, like they tell us in the drivers meeting every week.”
Carl Edwards said there was a lot of gray area. Maybe that's why NASCAR hasn't been heavy-handed when it comes to restarts. It can be hard to tell if a driver jumped a restart or if another driver slowed down to create an optical illusion. Of course, the easy solution would be to have the official in the flagstand with the green flag start the race, but that's another argument for another day.
“I believe the restarts are still kind of – there’s still a lot of gray area there that I don’t think everyone in the garage understands exactly what is allowable and what’s not. There’s a lot of people that hang back pretty far and get runs," Edwards said. "When you’re on the front row – let me put it simply as I think that the leader now he’s in a little bit worse of a position than he’s ever been probably on the restarts just because everyone is getting so good at hanging back or pushing the envelope. It’s really – it’s tough to decide what to do as the leader.”
While drivers would like NASCAR to outline and clarify restart procedures, the most important thing going forward is consistency. Given that the trend has been a lack of penalties, NASCAR becoming heavy-handed when it comes to restarts over the past 10 races would be a bad idea.
Can you imagine if NASCAR penalized a Chase driver on a restart and the poor finish as a result ended up costing him a chance to move on? The 2015 season has already focused too much on the sanctioning body's decisions vs. the racing on the track. While a balls-and-strikes officiating decision influencing the Chase would be an apt continuation of the theme, it'd be yet another example that NASCAR has struggled with its rules application and implementation.
And given the small-sample size nature of the three three-race and final one-race round in the Chase, a restart penalty has more significance than it would in the previous format.
“I think the key to restarts is consistency," Brad Keselowski said. "If NASCAR wants to kind of let it play out on the race track then they need to continue to do that. If they don’t, then they need to make it a point to say that everything that has gone on to date is not okay. The ball is in their court.”
NASCAR shouldn't find a new ball. The Chase should play out as close to how the season has so far. It's the consistent thing to do. There's plenty of time to change and/or tighten the restart rules in the offseason.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
