NASCAR just dug themselves an even deeper hole

NASCAR dug themselves an even deeper hole by issuing a 25-point penalty to William Byron after Sunday’s race at Texas Motor Speedway.

When William Byron retaliated against Denny Hamlin on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway for running him out of room when the two were racing off of turn two, many expected NASCAR to issue a penalty to the driver of the #24 Chevrolet.

Byron admitted that he ran into the back of Hamlin’s #11 Toyota under caution intentionally, though he said he did not mean to send him spinning through the infield.

But Byron was not penalized, and Hamlin was not allowed to retain his position, which would have been one spot ahead of Byron. The reason was simple: NASCAR totally missed it, as they were focused on the initial cause of the caution, which was leader Martin Truex Jr.’s flat tire and subsequent spin.

NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Scott Miller admitted after the race that this was the case and stated that Byron would have been sent to the rear and/or Hamlin would have been allowed to retain his position, had any attention been paid to the two-car incident.

But that didn’t stop NASCAR from penalizing Byron anyway.

Instead, they opted to issue him a 25-point penalty, which is massive in a three-race round of the playoffs. He had initially been sitting in third place in the standings with one of three round of 12 races in the books, 17 points above the round of 8 cut line, after a seventh place finish.

He now sits in 10th place, eight points below the cut line and behind seven drivers whom he had previously been ahead of. He scored the same amount of points he would have scored with a 32nd place finish.

While there is little reason to argue against Byron being penalized for the incident, this penalty is worse than it would have been had NASCAR actually been paying attention when the incident happened.

As mentioned, Miller admitted after the race what two possibilities were for Byron had they seen the incident when it happened. Even if they had sent him to the rear, he wouldn’t have lost 25 points.

There were 25 cars that finished on the lead lap. At worst, Byron would have finished in 25th place instead of seventh, scoring 18 fewer points than he scored, and that’s assuming he made up zero ground the rest of the race.

Even if they had parked him, which Miller didn’t mention as a possibility, he would have scored only 23 fewer points with a 30th place finish, which is still a lesser penalty than the one he received.

So Byron is ultimately paying for NASCAR’s mistake, in addition to his own.

And since a “to the rear” penalty would have given him the opportunity to make up at least a few spots back, it’s probably more the former than it is the latter.

As expected, Hendrick Motorsports are appealing the penalty, which also includes a $50,000 fine. While NASCAR seemingly incriminated themselves on this one since neither of the two in-race actions Miller mentioned were nearly as harsh as what Byron actually got, it’s hard to see much changing.

But a reduced points penalty shouldn’t be out of the question.

While it would be easy to say that NASCAR is “setting a precedent” by penalizing Byron in this manner, there is little more on display here — several days later — than inconsistency.

There was another unrelated incident which took place earlier this year in which a clear-cut violation, not one of driver vs. driver contact, took place. But NASCAR missed it as well, and nothing more was done about it. There is no “precedent”.