Sunday’s NASCAR race at Pocono had a lot of incidents and accidents, starting with how the race ended. Denny Hamlin placed Kyle Larson into the wall while passing him on his way to his 5oth NASCAR victory.
Naturally, Larson was not happy with Hamlin after the incident and called him out. Hamlin offered no apologies for what had taken place.
But NASCAR didn’t penalize Hamlin for the incident. NASCAR official Elton Sawyer explained why Hamlin was not penalized.
“We have two of the greatest race car drivers that we’ve probably seen in the history of our sport behind the 11 and the 5 steering wheels. They’re future Hall of Famers, and we’re seven laps to go and they’re both doing everything they can to win the race,” he said.
“So when you come up short on that, for whatever reason, if you feel like you’ve been done wrong, you’re going to be to upset. You’re going to want to show your displeasure. … Those guys are professionals. I feel like they will handle that (moving forward) appropriately. If we feel like we need to get involved more, we will, but at this time I don’t see anything we need to do on our side,” he said.
Before that, however, there were several other incidents involving Austin Dillion, Tyler Reddick, Ryan Preece, and Corey LaJoie but none are expected to be penalized either says Sawyer. Reddick put Dillion into the SAFER barrier and afterward threw his helmet at Reddick’s car.
Preece spun on the penultimate lap after contact with LaJoie’s car. After the race, Preece went to LaJoie’s car on pit road and yelled at him before he was pulled away from the car.
Sawyer also talked with Joey Logano who was frustrated with not being towed immediately after his car had flat tires and couldn’t move at Pocono.
To say this was a tense race would be an understatement as many drivers are still vying for a playoff spot.
