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With less than 25 laps to go in the Protection One 400 at Kansas Speedway, NASCAR again threw a yellow flag for debris on the track. Not a hunk of sheetmetal, a large piece of plastic from a windshield tear-off, or pieces of rubber compound from frayed retreads, this debris was a wad of tape, no bigger than a baseball. Yes, apparently tape has become so ungodly dangerous to these high-speed, high-power cars and drivers cruising at 180MPH, that a race must be yellow flagged so tape can be unstuck from a hot track surface. And so dangerous is this tape that four caution laps must be run while the tape is extracted from the asphalt. Something stinks in the NASCAR trailer.
It just seems too coincidental that removal of the tape took just long enough for all cars on the lead lap to make 4-tire change pit stops. It also seems too coincidental that the caution flag flew only as the possibility loomed that a team may win the race on fuel mileage alone. Is it really debris, or is it just another way for NASCAR to ensure something other than a lackluster finish? Debris - yeah, right.
Debris has quickly become akin to a World Wrestling Federation referee missing a pin by an underdog because an errant chair knocked him out. Everyone knows who should have won the championship belt, but the spoils go to someone else, because that's the way the match was scripted and the way the WWF wanted it. Countless drivers have been denied fuel mileage victories, or a victory by margins of more than 3 seconds this year because of late race cautions. If cars aren't crashing, then NASCAR finds debris.
Elliot Sadler fell victim to NASCAR's debris policy in the June Pocono race. One of the last cars on the lead lap to pit, Elliot Sadler and the Wood Brothers held off making what could have been their final stop of the day until lap 159. 10 laps later, NASCAR's mystery yellow flew, bringing the entire field down pit road for fuel. Sadler could have won the race on fuel mileage alone, but NASCAR wouldn't stand for it. Instead, the Pocono victory was handed to Dale Jarrett.
Later that month a Michigan race found a field of 43 cars too spread out with only 85 laps to go. To bring the cars closer together, and put more than the current 11 cars onto the lead lap, NASCAR threw a late race caution for "debris on the track". The debris in question was nothing more than a soda pop can. The notion that a soda pop can is going to play more into the outcome of the race than a 4-lap caution to pick it up and place it in the nearest recycle bin is poppy-cock. Everyone who watches racing wants to see an exciting finish to the race, but it should happen naturally, not by the hands of the sanctioning body.
In Indianapolis, Rusty Wallace saw his hopes of a Brickyard victory dashed as NASCAR threw the mystical debris yellow with only 4 laps left in the feature event. Not the best car on short runs, Wallace had nothing for Awesome Bill from Dawsonville, apparently a NASCAR favorite to win. Bill Elliot was the first to take the checkered, collapsing Wallace to the runner-up position. The display was yet another in a list of many where NASCAR officials, not driver and team talent, impacted the outcome of a race.
A bumper, a bicycle, a quarter-panel - that's debris. Hotdog wrappers, soda cans, and muffin tins - that is unfortunate littering, not debris. Drivers can race hard, pit crews can play smart, but at the end of the day, it's still NASCAR that picks the race winner. That's not right. Instead of looking for ways to bring cars closer together near the checkered flag of a race, perhaps NASCAR should look for ways to give the race outcome back to drivers and teams. Late race cautions - debris my ass.