NASCAR race director explains why caution thrown in Duel 2 finish, but not Daytona 500 finish

After another wild and controversial Daytona 500 weekend, the NASCAR Race Director, Jusan Hamilton, is breaking things down. Why was the caution thrown in Duel 2, taking the win from Erik Jones, when it wasn’t thrown in the actual race on Sunday?

Credit where it is due, NASCAR has started a new podcast this year called Hauler Talk. The show is meant to shed light on decisions that the series makes each week. A little transparency for fans and teams.

Race Director Jusan Hamilton was able to shed light on how NASCAR makes caution calls. He also touched on the Duel 2 finish compared to the Daytona 500 finish last week.

“The first thing that obviously, the race directors are going to be concerned with is safety,” Hamilton explained to Nate Ryan and Amanda Ellis. “And when I say safety it’s not always just about the drivers but it’s about getting the crews to respond where the incident occurred. For example, a wreck on the frontstretch at Daytona there’s really two primary cutout locations where safety crews can respond. The primary location is going to be coming from Turn 1, counter back to race direction where cars will be coming through.

“So, that’s a little bit different than responding to an incident, let’s say, middle of the backstretch where there’s a lot of equipment positioned in Turn 2 that can flow race direction to respond to it. So, there’s the safety of the crews responding, the safety of the drivers, and obviously, the safety of those in the venue that’s going to come to play.”

For example, the Duel 2 race had a wreck on the frontstretch. The Daytona 500 wreck was into Turn 3 on the backstretch.

NASCAR Race Director admits hindsight is 20/20

To get more specific about the differences between the two calls, Hamilton was honest about his and NASCAR’s post-race assessment. They likely could have held off on the caution on Thursday night.

However, that comes with a qualifier.

“Generally, when you have several vehicles making a heavy impact just before you get to the start-finish line there in the trioval, we’ve seen bad things happen in the past,” Hamilton explained. “So, with several of those heavy wall hits that did take place right around the entrance to pit road, the determination in the moment was to put the caution out, allow us to be able to respond quickly and get the vehicles that were spread out, still coming off of Turn 4 the opportunity to roll out of it and not pile in and make a situation worse there.

“So, Hindsight, I’d say, is always 20/20. That’s one when you look back, I would say we could do differently. I’d say we could let them get to the start-finish line, but that’s looking back now on a Tuesday, going through all of our reviews, and having the luxury of time to review the full situation and also knowing the outcome of getting the vehicles back to the start-finish line.”

While Hamilton does admit that call on Thursday could have been different, he doesn’t really. He says with the hindsight, data, and knowing no one was hurt – they could have held it.

In the moment, as in future races, they won’t know that for certain. And he is right. Those frontstretch wrecks on these big tracks are dangerous. Not just for drivers but also fans and pit crews as well depending on how these wrecks go.

Daytona 500 wreck was under the right circumstances

So, what about the Daytona 500? Denny Hamlin went at a right angle up into the outside wall. He hit another car instead of the wall, but those hits are devastating at times. There were multiple cars wrecking with more coming at race speed behind them.

Still, no caution. So, why didn’t the yellow get put out on Sunday night? Jusan Hamilton says it was more or less the right circumstances. NASCAR can send safety crews quicker in these instances with how the track is set up.

“On Sunday for example, that’s right after an overtime restart,” Hamilton continued. “It’s not often after a restart you have a lot of vehicles laying back or stragglers getting caught up. So, when you have that wreck take place, the field is entirely condensed, so when they get into Turn 3 they have the wreck. As soon as the wreck happens because all vehicles have passed by that Turn 2 cutout that I mentioned, we’re able to respond.”

NASCAR is doing the right thing. Explain yourself after controversial calls. Still, it feels like too little too late if we’re doing this on Tuesday after the fact each week.