Kansas Speedway has slowly become one of NASCAR’s most competitive tracks in recent years. Outside of the three superspeedway tracks (Daytona International Superspeedway, Talladega Superspeedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway), Sunday’s (Sept. 29) race had the second-highest number of lead changes (30) all season.
Compared to recent weeks, there was a little more discussion about the race itself during Countdown to Green. It was a welcome change as compared to the race being treated as nothing more than a means to an end with the playoffs. I suppose that’s mainly due to the fact that it was the first race of the Round of 12.
The first lap saw the biggest incident of the day break out when Ty Dillon and Harrison Burton collided exiting turn 2 and spun, collecting Josh Berry and Jimmie Johnson. Everyone continued except for Berry, who ended up with four flat tires.
A lot of the focus here was on Chase Elliott, who started at the rear of the field after his team changed engines following qualifying. NASCAR considered Elliott to have been involved in the incident, but he didn’t make contact with any of the other four drivers.
The biggest takeaway from this incident (other than the fact that Johnson just can’t buy a break in the Next Gen car) is that Berry was ruled out of the race because of a complete refusal by NASCAR to tow the car back to the pits. Once again, this is infuriating. If I ran NASCAR, one of the first things I’d do is kill the Damaged Vehicle Policy. It is an embarrassment to the sport.
On USA Network, this situation really wasn’t discussed all that much at all. We caught up with Berry at the infield care center and he was a frustrated man. I don’t blame him.
This is a topic that really should have been covered on the broadcast, especially being so early in the race. USA Network did a disservice to the fans by not doing so. Due to this dumb rule, Berry’s race was over 25 seconds after the green flag.
I’m still really confused about it knowing that NASCAR instituted a rule change a few weeks ago that allows lifters to be installed on the rear shock absorbers of the car. It allows the rear of the car to lift at the push of a button solely for this reason.
After watching the above clip and reading Berry’s quotes from Ford after the race (which is literally our video), I’m unclear whether or not Berry’s car had the lifting…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at …