NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell responds to officiating criticism

Ahead of the season finale for NASCAR this weekend at Phoenix Raceway, President Steve Phelps and Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell held a press conference regarding the current state of the sport.

The topic of officiating has been a hot-bed issue for NASCAR fans in 2024, and it’s something they want to see improved next season, with races called more consistently. O’Donnell tackled the commentary head-on, explaining why he believes officials in motorsports deal with unique challenges other sports don’t see.

“We’ve had to navigate some tough challenges throughout the year, but I will say, about our group, especially those officiating each and every weekend, there is no harder sport to officiate,” O’Donnell claimed. “We don’t have time outs. We don’t wait during the action. Cars going 200 miles an hour. You’ve got to make split-second decisions. We don’t always get those right, but for the most part, we do, and what I’m most proud of is we come, we speak to the media, we’re transparent on every single call that we make.

“When there’s a challenge, or when we can learn from something, we’re going to do that and we’re going to make adjustments, like we always have. I can tell you, I’ve been here almost 30 years, and every race you probably see something different. It’s our job to react to that and come up with a new rule, or come up with a new policy, that we’ve got to go after it.”

O’Donnell makes a good point. There’s bad calls made in the NFL week-in and week-out, and while fans may hold referees’ feet to the fire, it’s not like they have a press conference afterwards. That’s an idea O’Donnell drove home, comparing NASCAR to other popular sports when it comes to officiating.

“Can you name one sport that doesn’t have officiating questions throughout the year, right? So, absolutely, we — every year, we address those,” O’Donnell added. “I think a lot of it is around technology, right? And a lot of it’s around formats that you look at, and different things that come into play now. So, you know, one of the biggest ones that we saw, you know, consistently, was the Damaged Vehicle Policy. You know, through, really no fault of trying to, in essence, save the industry money, we created a challenge, in terms of how we officiate. So, that’s something we want to continue to investigate.

“I think one of the biggest things you want to do is, how do we continue to use technology in real time, to notice what may or may not be occurring on the track, and address that as soon as possible. I don’t believe we have an officiating issue, at all. I think we have the best and the brightest in the business. Yes, we make mistakes. They’re humans. Hopefully we’ll never get to just AI making calls. But we will make adjustments.

“I think, if me or John or Elton or Steve are not up talking before the Daytona 500 about adjustments that we’ve made, then we haven’t done our job, because that’s what we always do in the off-season.”

Evidently, Steve O’Donnell recognizes there may be more than meets the eye when it comes to NASCAR’s perceived officiating problem, and they’re going to re-evaluate everything. What changes are made for 2025 remain to be seen, but it’s obvious nothing is off the table at the moment.