NASCAR’s Elton Sawyer explains Chase Elliott pit road penalty at Homestead

On Lap 169 of Sunday’s race at Homestead, NASCAR assessed a penalty to Chase Elliott for not entering pit road in a single-file line.

Elliott and crew chief Alan Gustafson argued the penalty with NASCAR, but to no avail. During a Tuesday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer addressed the penalty. Sawyer explained the rule is in place for safety purposes.

Elton Sawyer explains Chase Elliott penalty at Homestead

“There’s actually two parts of it,” Sawyer said, via Matt Weaver of Sportsnaut. “If we’re under green flag conditions and I’ll use the Daytona and Talladega track types, and even Homestead-Miami Speedway, the competition is green, it’s live and when they’re coming to pit road, they’ll run as wide around 3 and 4 as they can at speed so then they have to get slowed down to pit road speed by the time they get to the yellow line so therefore we can see cars that will enter side by side under green flag conditions.

“Under yellow flag conditions, we had a caution and captured the field and rode around under those conditions for at least a lap and maybe multiple laps so everyone has been captured and single file so by that point, there’s no reason to not be in a single file line as you enter pit road. The reason the rule is in place is safety. In the case when the 9 [Elliott] and he was beside the 2 [Austin Cindric], just imagine, the 2 is pitting in the first pit box, so if he’s in line, as soon as he crosses the pit entry line, he’s going to be turning left to get in his box.

“If there’s another car to his inside, he’s going to turn him around on pit road. We can see chaos without introducing to pit road like we saw with the 22 [Joey Logano] and 21 [Josh Berry] but in this case, you just have to be single-file. It’s straight forward. If you look at the in car of the 9, it’s pretty straight forward. We don’t see a lot of it, but we do see it from time to time.”

Pit road penalty dooms Chase Elliott’s day at Homestead

Elliott came down pit road in the eighth position. Once again, the No. 9 car was running well and tracking towards a top 10 finish. But the penalty proved too much to overcome. Elliott finished 18th — worst among all the Hendrick Motorsports cars.

Sawyer said that often times when drivers come to pit road, there’s an accordion effect. He added it’s up to drivers to “manage that.” Elliott didn’t, thus the penalty.

“I believe what happens there is that when the lead pack of cars, the leader, second, third, fourth or fifth, they will accelerate, and they won’t pass the caution vehicle, but they will pull up as fast as they can to get to that line to get some separation,” Sawyer said. “This leads to an accordion affect, and drivers just need to manage that. We put the rule in place for safety for those first few pit boxes there.”