NASCAR predictably embarrasses itself (twice) in the worst ways possible

34.7 seconds.

That's how long it took NASCAR to throw the caution flag after Cody Ware plowed into the tire barrier with two laps remaining in Sunday afternoon's Grant Park 165 Cup Series race on the streets of Chicago, Illinois.

Instead of throwing the caution flag right when the caution happened (or, you know, within like 20 seconds of it happening...), they waited until Trackhouse Racing's Shane van Gisbergen crossed the finish line and took the white flag. As a result, the yellow flag effectively ended the race.

It was obvious to anybody watching that Ware's wreck warranted an immediate yellow. He blew a rotor and went head-first at full speed.

But NASCAR saw fit to wait, even as Ware called for help on the radio, and that made an embarrassing situation even more pathetic.

How the heck do they "not know"? What are we doing here?

I'm convinced that NASCAR loves bad publicity, because clicks are clicks, mentions are mentions, and engagement farming is more important than actually putting out an acceptable product these days.

Why else would they not only implement a random mid-season tournament but start it with a superspeedway race, a street course race, and a road course race?

I digress. That said, holding the yellow after the Ware crash is certainly one way to generate awful publicity for the sport and paint an even clearer picture regarding the incompetence at the top.

The safety issue is one thing, and yes, that's the big focus here. It was a major whiff. Having said that, the way it all played out, NASCAR opened up another completely different can of worms: race manipulation.

Van Gisbergen had the race in the bag, and sure, nobody is debating the fact that an overtime restart could have (and, on the tight streets of the Windy City, probably would have) resulted in chaos and possibly even produced a totally random winner who happened to keep his nose clean.

Someone inevitably would have sent it from six rows back and blocked the track with a 14-car pileup, because that's what happens anymore.

Nobody is arguing against the fact that NASCAR's best active road/street course driver is the one and only deserving winner of Sunday's race.

But NASCAR has rules.

And under those track conditions, whether we like it or not, those rules should have produced a yellow flag and thus an overtime finish.

No, those rules don't always produce a "deserving" winner, per se, but those are the rules, and when you not only show inconsistency with the rulebook (a lot) but do so while ignoring a massive safety hazard on the race track (and the very driver who just had the massive wreck), things have gone way too far. And that's putting it nicely.

And let's not neglect to mention what happened a few laps prior to set up a separate restart.

NASCAR is so insistent on racing Chicago (another venue, like Mexico, that apparently no one is allowed to criticize) that a completely inexcusable error took place when a spectator needed medical attention.

NASCAR had to pause the race so that an ambulance could cross the track.

I'm not going to lie. I questioned if maybe Bob Pockrass got hacked when I saw this tweet, and I probably wasn't the only one.

Again, what are we doing here?

I'm not anti-change. But it really seems like with every modern deviation from what one might consider the norm, NASCAR has become an overglorified (not by the fans, mind you) dog and pony show, and they aren't necessarily doing anything to play down that notion, either.

All in all, it was an interesting weekend. It marked the final year of Chicago's initial three-year deal, and as much as NASCAR seemingly thinks racing there is the greatest thing in the world, San Diego is the rumored landing spot for NASCAR's street race for 2026, with additional cities, such as Philadelphia, also recently emerging for future consideration.