During Sunday’s Cup playoff race at Texas Motor Speedway, Denny Hamlin got spun by William Byron while under caution, which had major implications for how things played out. At the time, not only did NASCAR not put Hamlin back into his original locatio but they also didn’t penalize Byron. Now, a senior NASCAR official is admitting that they simply missed the whole thing.
“When we were in the tower, we were paying more attention to the actual cause of the caution up there and dispatching our equipment,” Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition said afterward. “The William Byron–Denny Hamlin thing, we had no eyes on. We saw Denny go through the grass.
“By the time we got a replay that showed the incident well enough to do anything to it, we had gone back to green. I’m not sure that that issue is completely resolved as of yet. We’ll be looking at that when we get back to work.”
Here's a look at what happened between @WilliamByron and @dennyhamlin. #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/UgPH2EIiNd
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 26, 2022
Byron hit Hamlin while the caution lights were on in retaliation for being forced into the wall earlier in the race. Hamlin then spun into the infield but he was not returned to the position he should have been by NASCAR officials given the circumstances.
The blown call could end up having reverberations for the playoff race. While Miller said that they’ll be looking to do something this week about it, Hamlin remained confused as to how they missed it given that his team was on the radio yelling about it.
We were on the radio yelling at them what happened. I challenged my spot. What are they doing up there then?
— Denny Hamlin (@dennyhamlin) September 26, 2022
According to Miller, it was a camera issue for why they didn’t see it.
“The cameras and the monitors that we’ve got, we dedicate them mostly to officiating and seeing our safety vehicles and how to dispatch them. By the time we put all those cameras up (on the monitor in the control tower), we don’t have room for all of the in-car cameras to be monitored,” said Miller. “If we would have had immediate access to (Byron)’s in-car camera, that would have helped us a lot, being able to find that quickly. That’s definitely one of the things we’re looking at.”
#NASCAR’s Scott Miller says officials did not see William Byron spin Denny Hamlin under caution. pic.twitter.com/1PuA2JSsk0
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) September 26, 2022
Byron said that while he wanted to get back at Hamlin for pushing him into the wall, he didn’t mean to spin him out.
“I felt like he ran me out of race track off of (Turn) 2 and had really hard contact with the wall,” Byron said. “Felt like the toe link was definitely bent, luckily not fully broken.
“I didn’t mean to spin him out. That definitely wasn’t what I intended to do. I meant to bump him a little bit and show my displeasure and unfortunately, it happened the way it did. Obviously, when he was spinning out, I was like ‘I didn’t mean to do this,’ but I was definitely frustrated.”
We’ll see if NASCAR does anything regarding punishment for Byron or not.