NASCAR EVP Elton Sawyer breaks down decision to throw caution flag for Kyle Busch wall brush, Kyle Larson spin

“If you look at the No. 8, when he went down into three, it looked he either had a right front down, or maybe a brake failure. Wasn’t really sure. That was really the deciding factor on why to throw it there,” Sawyer told the media following the race.

“And then obviously the No. 5 at the end. He spun on the front straight-away, driver’s side with upcoming traffic. That’s a no brainer, you’re going to throw that every time.”

That makes sense from Sawyer, although the teams that were negatively affected by the cautions won’t see it that way. One of those drivers was Martin Truex Jr., as the veteran wheelman would’ve won the race handily if not for the caution Larson brought out.

Regardless, Elton Sawyer makes some good points, and at least we now have an explanation from NASCAR as to why they were quicker with the caution flag than many expected them to be on Sunday evening.

NASCAR approves overtime restart from Denny Hamlin at Richmond: ‘It was awful close’

Meanwhile, many are wondering if Denny Hamlin got away with cheating on the overtime restart at Richmond. After the race was over, NASCAR decided he was good, after reviewing the situation. Martin Truex Jr. felt Hamlin jumped the restart but the sanctioning body isn’t budging from their stance. 

Elton Sawyer, Vice President of competition at NASCAR, confirmed they reviewed the restart and Denny Hamlin did not jump it. 

“Yeah we reviewed that, we looked at it,” Sawyer said after the race. “Obviously, the 11 was the control vehicle. It was awful close, but we deemed it to be a good restart.”

So, what do fans want NASCAR to do? These are one of those areas where the sport just isn’t built to hand out penalties and disqualifications at the end of the race for a restart violation. This is not F1, and that just isn’t how officiating goes in this sport. 

Let’s say NASCAR found an issue with how Denny Hamlin conducted that restart – do they give him a time penalty? Hold the field and do the restart again after making Hamlin serve a penalty? Then fans would complain that they altered the finish of the race that way. 

This is another example of no good answer. Except, I think, the best answer was to just leave things as they were. Just as NASCAR decided to do.

On3’s Jonathan Howard contributed to this article.