iNSIDE SCOOP: Waving the Flag

After watching the finish of Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega Superspeedway--and listening to some fans complain mightily about the finish under caution--I've come to the conclusion that you just can't make all NASCAR fans happy all the time.

Duh.

OK, I get it. You want to see the cars come down to the finish line and hope one or two of them are really close when the splitter hits the stripe. It's either that, or you want to see some of them spin through the grass and all sorts of chaos and mayhem. Whatever floats your boat, y'all.

But understand this: had NASCAR not thrown the yellow flag when it did, some of those cars might have wound up a lot closer to you than you really want them to be, if you get my drift.

A six-foot chunk of bumper cover was sitting in the middle of the track, along with various other bits of stuff that could pop tires (not that we have had any problem doing that this year) or cause a move that triggers another 12-car pileup.

A 12-car pileup at Martinsville is one thing; a 12-car pileup on the frontstretch at Talladega is a horse of a different color.

There's a reason why NASCAR banned racing back to the flag. It's because all sorts of shady stuff can happen between here and there, and it put drivers more at risk than they already are.

It also puts the fans right there along with them.

I know that some people can't be pleased. You all know people like that. If you don't, chances are you are that person.It's a fact of life. There's an old adage that goes, "when you're playing poker, you're trying to determine who the fish is. If you can't tell, you're the fish." Same principle applies here.

If they don't throw the yellow and your guy crashes, you're ticked. If they throw the yellow and your guy gets hosed out of a shot at victory, like Greg Biffle did, you're ticked. NASCAR can't win.

At the end of the day, you make the call that's the right thing to do. David Hoots, Robin Pemberton and Mike Helton are the guys that make that call, and they do it every race.

Yeah, I know all about the debris cautions that just happen to make a snoozer into a wide-open, hell-bent-for-election free-for-all. Most are legit, others are...questionable, if you want an opinion. You win some, you lose some, some get yellow-flagged.

When I worked as a race official for a sanctioning body, there was a hidden policy that saw various other officials armed with stuff that would justify a caution, should it be needed. A signal would go down from the flag man to the officials in the tower and to the appropriate official, the stuff would be "found" and the yellow would wave.

Call it the "competition caution rewind." In other words, the competition wasn't dealing with a certain driver who had them covered, and in the interests of "the Show," it was dealt with.

I am not saying this is happening in NASCAR, by any means. I'm saying it has precedent, and there are other aspects of show biz that creep into a race call on occasion.NASCAR has been bitten by this particular dog in the past, and they have learned a lesson.

You call a caution when your gut tells you to, and you leave well-enough alone when it tells you that. End of story.

Just remember that safety comes first, and if there's a question, you hit the button. If you hit the button and it turns out not to have been exactly necessary, them's the breaks.

I agree with "let 'em race," but I also agree with the tenet that you let the people in charge run the race. If they say yellow, hit the button. 

End of rant, and we're in Kansas this weekend. Stay tuned.