NASCAR admits they made a mistake in Truck race on restart call
Upon further review, NASCAR officials admitted Saturday that they incorrectly called a restart late in Friday night’s NASCAR Truck Series race at Kansas Speedway.
Start: John Wes Townley, Athenian Motorsports Chevrolet leads
NASCAR Media
On the next to last restart of the Toyota Tundra 250, it appeared Timothy Peters had jumped the restart and started before then-leader Matt Crafton in the restart zone.
NASCAR officials immediately placed the restart “under review” but eventually cleared Peters of any wrongdoing.
On Saturday in the Sprint Cup Series drivers meeting, series director Richard Buck said Peters should have been penalized, even though he gave the spot back to Crafton.
“That one’s on us,” Buck said.
In answering a question to driver Carl Edwards, Buck also reminded drivers “giving back the spot” is not a way to avoid a penalty.
Crafton said the following after the race about the questionable restart:
“The No. 17 (Peters) just – the No. 9 (William Byron) pushed (Peters) and had a really good restart and got by us on that one, but it’s a shame because I know this thing was so good. It’s a brand new truck we just brought here and these guys worked really, really hard and we had the truck to beat and that’s racing.”
After the incident, Peters’ crew maintained Crafton didn’t maintain speed in the restart zone but NASCAR officials said Saturday they determined that was not the case.
Byron, 18, went on to win the race in a wild two-lap shootout.
Several NASCAR drivers expressed their astonishment during the race that Peters didn’t receive a penalty, including 2016 Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin.
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