What Happened
Matt Kenseth was leading with Jeff Gordon running second when the yellow came out. Matt Kenseth slowed down to allow teammate Kurt Busch (and a handful of other cars) get back onto the lead lap. Gordon did not want those drivers to get their laps back and passed Kenseth to keep those lapped drivers down.
NASCAR then ruled that Jeff had violated the "gentleman's agreement" and returned him to second place behind Kenseth.
Changing The Rules On The Fly
Huh? The NASCAR Winston Cup series rules say that drivers should race back to the caution. This means that passing is allowed until you cross the start/finish line and take the yellow flag. Certainly drivers need to use their heads, eyes and spotters in order to only race back when it is safe to do so but the rule says that you race back to the yellow.
I understand Kenseth wanting to let his teammate back on the lead lap but that should be one of the risks that you take. If I'm the leader and I slow down before taking the yellow then I risk getting passed. Maybe if this happened more often we'd see drivers stop intentionally slowing down, what is this? Formula One?
The last time I checked, this was NASCAR racing where the object of the game was to be the fastest and get to the finish line first. Gordon didn't want to give his competitors an advantage, he had worked hard to be faster than them and didn't want to just give that away.
If it had been a dangerous pass, recklessly weaving through damaged cars I could certainly understand NASCAR slapping his hand. But this was not a safety issue, the incident that caused the caution was not in the way.
NASCAR simply enforced a unwritten rule instead of the written one.
Should drivers and teams expect to race according to the written rulebook? Or do they race according to whatever may be in Gary Nelson and Mike Helton's heads?
NASCAR needs to clarify exactly what the rule is in this instance and be consistent in their enforcement.
Update From NASCAR
NASCAR President Mike Helton issued a statement this week that if they had it to do over again they would have handled this situation differently and allowed Gordon to keep the lead.
I'm happy to see that NASCAR can admit when they make a mistake. I'm confident that this won't happen again. NASCAR generally does an excellent job of clarifying the situation for the officials and teams and enforcing their rules.
