In the points standings, Chase Elliott led teammate Kyle Larson by three points heading into the Cup Series race in Indianapolis. Over the past few weeks, the two drivers have been battling it out for the regular season championship. But during his first pit stop, Elliott’s hopes were severely damaged when he received a pass-through penalty for a blend-line infraction.
The restriction was first made public by the promotion on Saturday, thus drivers had limited opportunity to get familiar with it. Elliott, it seems, did not either. Even though he had just followed the rules, he argued on his radio that the punishment still applied. In his post-race interview, Larson was questioned about this and gave a thorough account of the events from his perspective.
“The way I understood the rule was that you couldn’t get your right sides over the far white line because then you would be deemed on the racing surface. That’s what I did,” he said. Larson had been following Elliott as they exited the pit road at this point. He continued to note, “Yeah, I was following Chase. He swung way out. Yeah, I was like, ‘Man, that’s got to be a penalty.”
If not, at least I know how far I can push myself. They needed a few laps, I believe, to find a replay of it. In the end, he received a penalty while I did not. I knew it was lawful what I did.Elliott would not have been penalized if he had held out on entering the racetrack until after Turn 2, as Larson did. As a result of the penalty, he fell to 17th position in the rankings.
“I followed the fucking sheet exactly as instructed.”
Elliott argued over his radio to crew chief Alan Gustafson that he had done what the rule book instructed. According to tobychristie.com, he joked, “I mean, what the f**k? [Unintelligible] Comply with their instructions to the letter. You tell me how the f**k I was on the racing surface because they stated that rather than saying “line.”
To set the record straight, NASCAR made the decision to distribute the note it had issued to drivers before to the race. Elliott’s annoyance may have been caused by the fact that he received a penalty for the second consecutive week. He now trails Larson by 10 points on the points standings after finishing the race in tenth place.
The regular season champion will be determined by the results of the next four races. However, NASCAR will have a brief two-week hiatus before then. In August, it will race again at Richmond.
