NASCAR Needs A Little Relief Sometimes

If there’s one thing racecar drivers don’t ever want to do, it’s to get out of their racecar before the checkered flag.

It’s rare that it happens, but sometimes something comes up during a race when the driver isn’t able to continue. Illness, or the effect of an injury can take its toll quickly — the cockpit of a NASCAR Cup Series car hovers around 120 degrees during a race and can be much hotter during a day race in the summer months.

NASCAR has a rule in place to protect drivers: the driver who starts the race in a car is the driver credited for the car’s finish. When every point earned during the season matters, those points are crucial, and make a driver simply parking for the day an almost unthinkable option.

And that’s a problem.

But there have been questions raised lately about the continued necessity of such a rule. In the days of playoff waivers, it’s easier for a driver to simply miss a race. NASCAR has granted waivers without exception for injury or illness since the rule has been on the books.

It did raise a few eyebrows in Sonoma when Cup regular (and now Cup playoff driver) Daniel Suarez subbed for an injured Carson Hocevar during the Camping World Truck Series race at Sonoma Raceway.

Hocevar injured his right ankle in the previous race at World Wide Technology Raceway, had surgery, and was cleared to start at Sonoma, but his team knew going in that he likely wouldn’t be able to run the full distance. Suarez, who won the Cup race at Sonoma the next day, took over the wheel and drove the No. 42 truck to a sixth-place finish.

Under the rule, Hocevar is the only driver listed in the final rundown. That would be true even if Suarez had won the race. And yes, that has happened.

The driver in question was Aric Almirola. Almirola was running a part-time Xfinity Series schedule for Joe Gibbs Racing in 2007, whose Cup drivers, Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart, also ran a partial Xfinity schedule. Hamlin was scheduled to race the No. 20 Rockwell Automation car in a race at the Milwaukee Mile, running double duty with a Cup race in Sonoma. Hamlin would fly to Milwaukee immediately after his Cup obligations for the nighttime Xfinity race. Almirola had been on hand to practice and qualify for Hamlin, putting the car on the pole.

But as race time drew closer, it was clear that Hamlin wasn’t going to make it in time to take the green flag. Almirola started the race (and, in doing so, kept the team from having to start at the back…