NASCAR followed the rule book in declaring Blaney out of Watkins Glen race
09/18/2024 03:07 PM
NASCAR's Brad Moran has explained that officials followed its rule when towing Ryan Blaney back to the garage at Watkins Glen and declaring the Team Penske driver out of the race.
Blaney was one of the multiple drivers involved in the first-lap crash through the Bus Stop on Sunday. The reigning series champion made contact with Brad Keselowski in the incident, and the mechanical damage left him unable to drive his Ford Mustang. He complained in the garage that NASCAR should let the team diagnose their vehicle and not be the ones to declare the day over.
However, NASCAR introduced the damaged vehicle policy (DVP) in 2017, which dictates that cars taken to the garage from an on-track incident cannot return to the race. In part, NASCAR wanted to avoid damaged vehicles returning to the track and shedding debris. Cup Series teams get seven minutes to attempt to repair their vehicles on the DVP clock.
In the case of Blaney, however, the issue started on the track. Any time a car has to be towed back, it is out of the race.
"If you're in an incident and on the DVP and you cannot drive the vehicle back to your pit stall, then you are out of the race at that point," said Moran, the Cup Series managing director, on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "If you drive it into the garage or behind the wall, at that point, you're out of the race and have to go to the care center. It's a variety of reasons; there were efficiencies and safety. But all of the industry and collaboration put this together in 2017.
"It was very unfortunate. I totally get Blaney's frustration, but he was involved in the incident with , which did end up busting the front suspension or steering, and that would be consistent with what we've been doing since 2017."
Blaney also referred to cars towed back to pit road with flat tires and not taken out of the race. Moran acknowledged that is an issue with the Next Gen car that NASCAR has had to work to address, but it is not the same as a damaged vehicle.
"They could be perfectly fine with flat tires and getting stuck and couldn't move," Moran said. "Now that's not the same thing as bringing a damaged vehicle back to pit road; that's a vehicle that has steering and suspension and everything working but cannot move due to flat tires. We do bring them in to allow them to change tires and continue.
"The last thing we want to do is put cars out of the car. So, we do everything we can do to not do that but we have rules we have to follow."
Blaney has since admitted — also on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio — that he didn't know the rule before giving his television interview. Since then, Blaney has looked over the rule book and said NASCAR did everything by the rule and that he understands the situation.
