Jeff Gluck: Kasey Kahne says debris caution was bogus, but so what?
The caution flag waves during Sunday's NASCAR Sprint Cup Pepsi 500 at Auto Club Speedway in California. // Mark Sluder, NASCAR Scene
COMMENTARY
FONTANA, Calif. – Kasey Kahne slammed NASCAR on Sunday for what he said was a caution for phantom debris during the Pepsi 500.
Kahne was upset about being caught in a wreck that occurred thanks to a double-file restart following a late caution. The driver said NASCAR was trying to make up for a boring race by creating some drama with a yellow flag.
I don't know if that's true or not. I heard officials talking about a piece of debris under the caution light on the backstretch right before they displayed the yellow flag, but we may never really know whether they spotted something legitimate or Kahne's assertion that NASCAR wanted to bunch up the field was accurate.
But I do know this: It doesn't matter.
Personally, I don't have a problem with "phantom" cautions. If NASCAR is looking for an excuse to bring all the cars back together and create some excitement with a double-file restart, I'm totally OK with that.
Why? Because double-file restarts have done what the new car could not: dramatically improve the quality of racing, even at a place like Auto Club Speedway, which has traditionally put on some lackluster events.
If that debris caution wasn't called yesterday, the race very well may have finished with Jimmie Johnson winning by 12 seconds. Is that what you really wanted? That's not good for the fans or the sport.
Johnson still won, so it's not as if NASCAR stole a win from someone by throwing the caution. Kahne, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and other drivers were obviously mad because they had poor finishes after wrecks caused by the bunched-up field, but fans would rather see action and drama than single-file, follow-the-leader racing.
In some cases, a debris caution is a less blatant way to call a timeout. Other sports have timeouts to reset the action. What's wrong with using the debris caution to inject some action into an otherwise boring race?
The alternative (aside from just letting a driver stink up the show) would be to have a competition caution at an arbitrary lap – perhaps 10 laps to go. This would cause a shootout-like finish at every race and would make for must-see viewing because fans would be certain to see a good ending.
But there would probably be a chorus of opposition to that for being too contrived, much more than is raised for a "phantom" caution – even when a driver like Kahne calls NASCAR out for it.
Fans need these cautions to get more double-file restarts, which is when 90 percent of the excitement these days occurs.
Whether there's real debris that could damage a car or the "debris" turns out to be a piece of rubber or a water bottle, debris cautions late in the race produce entertaining finishes.
Let's say Kahne was right and NASCAR really did throw a caution on Sunday just for the benefit of the fans and good racing.
So what?
