Noah Gragson points to NASCAR inconsistency for late carnage at Atlanta

NASCAR has come under fire for throwing the caution flag during the overtime portion of the Ambetter Health 400 when a wreck occurred well behind the leaders, who were racing to the finish line.

The issue wasn’t so much the caution itself, but the pattern of execution by the governing body.

Asked if he’d rather see teams allowed to race it to the line or the caution thrown in situations like Sunday’s, driver Noah Gragson has a simple — yet very revealing — take on the matter.

“Yes. Yes, but the consistency of it,” Gragson said on the Door Bumper Clear podcast. “I almost messaged in the group chat, ‘Good morning, are we racing back to the checkers today or are we ending it under caution?’ because you don’t know. It’s been different every week.”

The inconsistency is primarily the issue most drivers seem to have with NASCAR’s decision on Sunday. Most don’t have an issue with throwing the caution when there’s a wreck on the track.

But when one week it’s left wide open without a caution and another it’s not, it gets confusing in a hurry.

“We saw it at Daytona. And I understand they’re in a tough position, it’s just the inconsistency is what we fear as drivers,” Gragson said. “Does Carson Hocevar make that move if he knows the caution’s coming out? Probably not. He probably shoves the 5. But he thinks we’re racing back to the checkers because in the drivers’ meeting they said we have every intent to race back to the checkers.”

If NASCAR hopes to smooth over the issue, it’ll need to start to develop more consistency around its rulings late in races. As Denny Hamlin put it, count Atlanta as a correct call. NASCAR is now 1-0, moving on from here with a fresh start.

For Gragson, there’s also another possible solution.

“They’re in a tough position, and I understand that, but we would just like to see more consistency on, ‘Hey, throw the caution every time,'” Gragson said.

“I did see a tweet yesterday, last night when I was on the plane, and this is going to open up a whole ‘nother can of worms, but even if you’re on the white flag just call the caution and have another green-white checkered. And finish it under green. If you’re going to call the caution in Turn 3 then you have opportunity, you know hey we’re going to get another shot at it and guys aren’t going to be wrecking into each other. But when you don’t know whether the caution’s coming or not you have to hold it wide open, and sometimes you’re going to plow through someone or you’re going to get through unscathed and everything’s going to be OK. But it’s a disaster waiting to happen.”