On Monday (May 1) at Dover Motor Speedway, Ross Chastain‘s aggressiveness got the best of him again, when he drove into the back of Brennan Poole, causing him to crash in turn 1.
Actually, it got the best of Kyle Larson, as Poole slid up and collected Larson, who looked to have one of the fastest cars on the track at the time and was advancing towards the front.
Larson returned to the track laps down and purposely cut off Chastain a few times as he was trying to run down eventual race winner Martin Truex Jr.
Prior to that, Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Ty Gibbs did the same, allowing Truex to extend his lead a bit. It came with NASCAR recently taking a strong stance against manipulation of race finishes by interfering with the leaders.
This week Amy Henderson and Anthony Damcott tackle the topic in 2-Headed Monster.
Where Would All the Fun Go?
It’s frustrating when a driver gets held up by lapped traffic, but that’s just racing.
Would you rather have drivers just move out of the way for the leaders and let the leader win the race by half a lap, or would you rather the leader get held up, even if just for a corner, and give fans a chance to see a race for the win?
Why penalize lapped traffic for doing their job: racing? No matter if they are first or 21st, if a driver is racing for position, or to stay on the lead lap in the event of a caution, that should be their right. It’s unfair to give favoritism to the leader just because he’s trying to lap a driver for the first time.
One might argue that lapped traffic holds up certain people to help a teammate or factory driver finish better, to which I retort: If a driver just pulls over and lets the leaders go by, especially if one of them is a teammate, then what’s the point of a teammate? As long as he’s not egregiously holding up the leader (i.e., blocking for laps on end), then it would be impossible for NASCAR to call it race manipulation.
One example at Dover was Ty Gibbs. Gibbs got lapped by teammate Truex, leaving Gibbs as the first car one lap down should a caution come out. It seemed like Gibbs got very racy when second-place Ross Chastain got to him. One could argue that Gibbs was trying his hardest to not lose Truex in the event that he lapped someone else, so Gibbs could fight for the lucky dog.
It’s ultimately on the leaders to find a way around lapped traffic. Earlier in the race, Aric Almirola was about to be lapped and gave the…
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