Kasey Kahne won yesterday's Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and though NASCAR "wanted a more exciting Brickyard 400," it is "hard to imagine Sunday is what it had in mind," according to Jim Ayello of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. There were "three red flags and almost as many cautions (14) as there were cars that finished the race on the lead lap (16)." By the end, the race "had become a laughingstock." For NASCAR, it was "absolute absurdity on one of its grandest stages." Something "needs to change." While the race might have "provided a few thrills to the NASCAR fans who crave chaos, this was surely not the show NASCAR wanted to put on" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 7/24). In Indianapolis, Gregg Doyel writes hundreds of fans "poured out" of IMS "barely halfway through" the race, when Dale Earnhardt Jr. crashed out of the race. Earnhardt "climbed out of his car," drew the "loudest applause of the day, and disappeared from view." Fans in blue Earnhardt T-shirts "followed him out, walking to the infield parking lots, triggering a bizarre exodus of cars out of IMS even as the Brickyard 400 was still going." Earnhardt’s ability to "move product remains unmatched." During the thunderstorm that delayed Sunday’s race for almost two hours, "business was booming at Earnhardt’s memorabilia trailer" (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 7/24).
WORKING OVERTIME: Racing reporter Jeff Gluck notes NASCAR has an overtime rule, but it "appeared officials basically used the rule to make sure the race finished under yellow -- and thus ended -- on Sunday." That is the "second time in a month this has happened." Darkness was "quickly falling and there had been multiple big wrecks and long red flags." So when Denny Hamlin and others crashed on the backstretch, NASCAR "waited to put out the caution until Kahne had crossed the overtime line (thus making it an official attempt)." NASCAR could have "called a caution there, but they would have had to clean the track and might not have gotten the race restarted before it got dark." Gluck: "That's not the rule! Whether it was dark or not shouldn’t have mattered at all. If it was dark, then let THAT end the race (like a rain-shortened event) instead of using the overtime line to do it" (JEFFGLUCK.com, 7/24). MOTORSPORT.com's Jim Utter wrote it is time NASCAR "ended an experiment that has proven to be an abysmal failure: the idea of extending races in order to achieve an orchestrated result." NASCAR’s "stated goal is a laudable one -- 'to ensure a green-flag finish.'" But that statement "assumes that every race is supposed to end that way and anyone who has spent any time following motorsports knows that’s not the case." Any method "created for the sole purpose of 'ensuring a green-flag finish' is done so to orchestrate the finish of a race in a way other than how it would naturally play out" (MOTORSPORT.com, 7/24). YAHOO SPORTS' Nick Bromberg wrote, "It's a rule that both fans and drivers dislike, and one that we bet will be changing" in '18. That is why it was "frustrating" yesterday's race "ended the way it did" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 7/23).
