NASCAR official says sanctioning body 'will not make that error again' after COTA confusion

After confusion among some Cup teams on if they could shortcut Turn 6 at Circuit of the Americas last weekend, a NASCAR official said that it is "our responsibility to make sure all the competitors understand" how the sanctioning body will officiate track limits and that we "will not not make that error again."

Brad Moran, managing director of the Cup Series, made the comments Tuesday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio's "The Morning Drive."

NASCAR institutes track limits — penalties for shortcutting particular areas of the COTA course — to keep drivers from cutting particular turns.

A key area of concern with track limits is the esses part of the track — turns 3, 4, 5 and 6. Drivers can gain time by cutting those corners.

Last year's Cup race at COTA saw NASCAR penalize four drivers for cutting the corner in Turn 4. Last year's Xfinity race saw NASCAR issue 16 penalties for drivers short cutting a portion of the esses.

Moran said after consultation, the plan for this weekend was to put 450-pound plastic blocks on the inside of those corners to serve as a deterrent to cutting them. After feedback from drivers about what hitting those could do, NASCAR removed those blocks.

Moran stated that NASCAR only policed shortcutting in Turns 3, 4, 5 but not 6 last weekend at COTA. He said that was a change from last year when Turn 6 also was policed but last year's race was on the long course. This year's race was on a course shortened by a mile and NASCAR didn't see the need to police shortcutting in Turn 6 with the new course layout.

Moran said NASCAR disallowed more than 40 laps in practice for drivers shortcutting Turns 3, 4, 5 and also disallowed some qualifying laps for those infractions during the weekend.

"We had no questions," Moran said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "No one came to the hauler on it. We thought we were pretty clear.

" … We thought we were in good shape. We did a lot of work communicating and everything was, we felt we were in a pretty good place. In the Cup race on Sunday, in the first stage, we caught on a team scanner that they weren't sure about Turn 6 shortcutting. Obviously, we watched it take place right from the beginning of the race and we didn't have an issue with it."

Moran said that NASCAR confirmed to teams that there were no penalties for shortcutting Turn 6 — consistent from what Moran said how NASCAR had officiated it the whole weekend.

"From that point on, it played out well, but, obviously, there was some confusion because we had a lot of teams that had no questions, and I think we had a few teams that had questions and that's our responsibility to make sure that all the competitors understand. So, going back, we will not make that error again. We will make sure that everybody totally understands.

"But a lot of changes took place from Thursday, Friday, very close to the race. We dealt with it as quick as we could. And I guess the broadcast, as well, was on the same page as a few of the teams. Got that corrected, carried on and had a great event. But again our responsibility. We'll make sure that doesn't happen again."