For a few hours after last weekend’s race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway ROVAL, everyone was talking about Tyler Reddick’s heroic drive. An accident during stage two left Reddick’s No. 45 car with a broken toe link, which threatened to knock him out of the playoffs. Even after his crew repaired the damage, Reddick remained buried in the field and appeared unable to make up the necessary points to avoid elimination.
As a last-ditch effort, crew chief Billy Scott called Reddick to pit road with 28 laps to go, hoping a set of fresh tires would give Reddick an advantage over the competition. The strategy paid off, and Reddick did his part to drive his way through the field. By the time the checkered flag flew, Reddick had climbed to 11th place, allowing him to make up enough ground on Joey Logano to take the last transfer spot to the Round of 8 by four points.
But in the end, none of that mattered. The real final twist came during post-race inspection when Alex Bowman’s car was found to be too light. Bowman had mostly stayed out of the playoff drama during Sunday’s race, but subsequent disqualification knocked him out of championship contention and put Logano back into the playoffs. Despite some strong runs through the first half of the playoffs, Bowman’s woes in the Round of 12 came back to haunt him again.
It seems that the NASCAR world is in for another week where discussions about officiating will dominate the conversation, which is too bad. The sanctioning body deservingly took some heat from fans over its inconsistent enforcement of the Damaged Vehicle Policy in the past two weeks.
Now, the national series races at the ROVAL have brought a double dose of controversy. In the NASCAR Xfinity Series race, NASCAR threw a caution for Leland Honeyman’s wrecked car when leader Parker Kligerman was inches away from taking the white flag. The timing of the caution was unfortunate, especially because the TV broadcast spotted Honeyman’s disabled car long before race control triggered the caution. Instead of talking about Sam Mayer taking the lead on the overtime restart and securing a victory to keep his title hopes alive, fans were wondering why the caution came so late.
After the NASCAR Cup Series race on Sunday (Oct. 13), NASCAR has a similar problem. Instead of talking about Reddick’s comeback, Kyle Larson’s dominant win or who has the advantage in the Round of 8, all the conversation will be about how Bowman’s…
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