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18th
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Just when you thought you seen and/or heard the craziest things about NASCAR something new amazes and amuses you.
We've had the pothole and exploding track dryer at Daytona in years past. This year there have been rain delays, but that's nothing new.
There have been phantom debris cautions, but what about a truly phantom caution?
At Bristol Motor Speedway late Saturday night the long rain-delayed race was about to conclude with Carl Edwards cruising to his first win of the 2014 when caution came out with about two laps remaining.
Only there was no wreck, no debris, and -at the time of the caution- no weather conditions apparently giving a reason for the caution. It did start to pour again shortly after the caution flags waved.
As Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition and racing development, explained it “after review of the situation post-race, what had happened in the closing laps of the race, it appears that in the flag stand one of the flag people had leaned on the switch that is the manual override for the caution lights, and so that happened.
We've got times here, but anyway, that happened, and at that time when the flag stand realized that the caution lights were illuminated, the flag man threw the flag, and then after that happened we froze the field from the tower.
It appears that in, not all, but most of the flag stands have a manual override for the caution lights, and due to the weather and due to other things, there's an area that it couldn't have been ‑‑ it wasn't secured properly, and the flag person leaned against the switch and turned the caution lights on.
We tried to turn them off, and we realized that the override switch was on and they were hung on caution. It was a stupid error.”
Edwards actually saw the caution as an opportunity.
“Yeah, concern is not really a strong enough word, but it definitely got my attention. But at that point, hey, I've seen a lot of things happen in a racecar, and I know that I knew, hey, we're probably going to win this race if a caution doesn't come out,” said Edwards.
“The caution did come out, and I went; now we're going to have an opportunity to prove we deserve to win this race. Honestly it might have been more exciting. With everything like that there's always an opportunity, but yeah, I did not want to see that caution. I did not at all. So I'm glad that the rain came. I think there was some higher powers at work that. That worked out great.”
After a long day at the track including approximately four hours of rain delay I guess it will be hard, even for the natives of Pisa, Italy, to complain about the leaning tower official of NASCAR.
We've had the pothole and exploding track dryer at Daytona in years past. This year there have been rain delays, but that's nothing new.
There have been phantom debris cautions, but what about a truly phantom caution?
At Bristol Motor Speedway late Saturday night the long rain-delayed race was about to conclude with Carl Edwards cruising to his first win of the 2014 when caution came out with about two laps remaining.
 |
| Carl Edwards, Bristol, 2014 (Photo: Drew Hallowell/Getty Images) |
Only there was no wreck, no debris, and -at the time of the caution- no weather conditions apparently giving a reason for the caution. It did start to pour again shortly after the caution flags waved.
As Robin Pemberton, NASCAR vice president of competition and racing development, explained it “after review of the situation post-race, what had happened in the closing laps of the race, it appears that in the flag stand one of the flag people had leaned on the switch that is the manual override for the caution lights, and so that happened.
We've got times here, but anyway, that happened, and at that time when the flag stand realized that the caution lights were illuminated, the flag man threw the flag, and then after that happened we froze the field from the tower.
It appears that in, not all, but most of the flag stands have a manual override for the caution lights, and due to the weather and due to other things, there's an area that it couldn't have been ‑‑ it wasn't secured properly, and the flag person leaned against the switch and turned the caution lights on.
We tried to turn them off, and we realized that the override switch was on and they were hung on caution. It was a stupid error.”
Edwards actually saw the caution as an opportunity.
“Yeah, concern is not really a strong enough word, but it definitely got my attention. But at that point, hey, I've seen a lot of things happen in a racecar, and I know that I knew, hey, we're probably going to win this race if a caution doesn't come out,” said Edwards.
“The caution did come out, and I went; now we're going to have an opportunity to prove we deserve to win this race. Honestly it might have been more exciting. With everything like that there's always an opportunity, but yeah, I did not want to see that caution. I did not at all. So I'm glad that the rain came. I think there was some higher powers at work that. That worked out great.”
After a long day at the track including approximately four hours of rain delay I guess it will be hard, even for the natives of Pisa, Italy, to complain about the leaning tower official of NASCAR.