If you know anything about NASCAR, you should know that its officiating is only consistent at one thing: being inconsistent.
During Sunday's Grant Park 165 at the Chicago Street Course, Cody Ware crashed head-on into the tire barriers with a lap and a half to go. Under normal circumstances, this should have brought out an immediate yellow flag, setting up an overtime restart for an opportunity to finish under green.
Instead, NASCAR held the yellow for more than 30 seconds until after leader Shane van Gisbergen had taken the white flag, ending the race under caution.
Meanwhile, over at TNT's nearby trackside studio, one can only imagine the flashbacks that must have been going through the mind of longtime Xfinity Series and Truck Series driver Parker Kligerman.
NASCAR refuses to draw a line in the sand on race-ending cautions, and it has consequences
Only nine months ago, Kligerman found himself in the exact same position in the Xfinity Series race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval as van Gisbergen was in Chicago. Leland Honeyman Jr. got stuck underneath a barrier just as Ware did, and at first, it looked like the race was going to stay green.
Then, just fractions of a second before Kligerman took the white flag, the caution came out. Sam Mayer won the race in overtime.
There is simply no rhyme or reason behind NASCAR's decision-making in these situations. Sometimes it's clear as day that they're trying to manufacture drama with a chaos-inducing late restart (remember the 2022 All-Star Race fiasco?), while on other occasions, it's as if they just want the race to be over. All this accomplishes is it leaves fans and drivers alike wondering what could have been if the series stuck to any sort of precedent.
Worse yet, there remains little incentive or effort on the part of race control to do better. As is par for the course, it was nothing but excuses from Elton Sawyer and company on Sunday, who claimed they didn't know how hard Ware had hit. Not only is this now an issue that calls into question the fairness of the outcomes, but also the safety of the drivers.
NASCAR did see a car in the barriers but did not know how hard Ware hit. They thought maybe he could back up like Larson did last year so they were holding it to see. If they had known the Ware impact severity, would have thrown the yellow earlier. https://t.co/HmZliE5F4u
— Jeff Gluck (@jeff_gluck) July 6, 2025
We need accountability, and we need it now. A firm procedure must be established and followed without exception for late-race caution situations, whether that be on the final lap or approaching the white flag.
The way last year's Xfinity Series Charlotte Roval race played out was probably the correct call (though of course, not without first teasing the field for 30 seconds), but when the opposite one is made, drivers like Kligerman have every reason to feel robbed.