NASCAR's Elton Sawyer didn't expect blend line violations by Chase Elliott, Brad Keselowski after providing additional information
Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski were hit with blend line penalties during the Brickyard 400 on Sunday. On Tuesday, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer talked about the penalties on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and said NASCAR sent additional information to competitors “to help clarify any confusion that may have come out of the videos that at no point could you go up on the racing surface.”
“So we felt that we were in a pretty good place,” Sawyer said, per Dustin Long of NBC Sports. “Obviously, communication is something that we pride ourselves on and want to make sure our teams and drivers all understand, our fans understand, any nuances, if you will, around a particular venue that is different. We didn’t get a lot of questions back on the information that went out to the teams, so we felt like we were in a pretty good place.
“Take the two days (Xfinity and Cup race) of green flag pit stops, I think it was 77 total, 76 of them that were in the Cup race, all but two got them right. We’ll work on our side to do our due diligence to make sure we can clean up any miscommunication going forward as we always will on those types of situations.”
Elliott and Keselowski both expressed their frustrations with the penalty. “I don’t understand, what’s the penalty for?” Keselowski asked, via Davey Segal. “That’s not what the damn email said,” Keselowski responded when the penalty was explained to him. “I was not in the racing line.”
“That’s not right,” Elliott said on the radio. “I did exactly what the f***ing sheet said to do while those pieces of s**t motherf***ers are sitting up there not doing a f***ing thing.”
How Chase Elliott and Brad Keselowski finished Brickyard 400
Elliott earned a P10 finish on Sunday while Keselowski finished 21st. Keselowski had a chance to win, but his No. 6 car ran out of gas during the first overtime restart, which led to Kyle Larson earning the victory.
“I was just asking. I feel like we probably could’ve gotten to the exit of Turn 4. Maybe could’ve fought it off, maybe not. I don’t know. Would’ve liked to see. Just one of them deals,” Keselowski told FOX’s Bob Pockrass following the race. “You know, we have top ten speed. We’re not dominant, but we’re really competitive. You’re just trying to put yourself in a position for something good to happen to you, both here and Pocono. We got yellows. We didn’t need yellows at Pocono, with both of our cars, but I feel like we had control of the race. We didn’t get yellows, when we needed yellows, to win today.”