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NASCAR said the Kyle Larson ruling at Talladega Superspeedway came down to one thing: his left-side tire never went fully below the double yellow line, so there was no penalty to consider. Mike Forde, NASCAR’s vice president of racing communications, laid out how officials judge the rule on this week’s episode of NASCAR’s Hauler Talk podcast.
Forde said the official results from Sunday’s YellaWood 500 took longer to release because officials were reviewing Kyle Larson‘s final-lap charge from deep in the pack to the win.
‘The tire has to go fully below the yellow line’
“So there was a little bit of time,” Forde said. “We were reviewing it. The tire has to go fully below the yellow line.”
“So if there is even a half an inch that remains on that yellow line, we’re not going to call a penalty. So in our judgment, we felt that was pretty clear.”
“So that’s kind of where the conversation ends as far as NASCAR goes. It’s, do we feel there were tires below the yellow line? No. Okay. That’s it.”
Three steps to a penalty
Forde described the rule as a series of questions. A driver has to go below the line, has to improve his position by doing it, and must not have been forced down there by another car. “To get a penalty, you have to be below the yellow line, you have to improve your position. And then, in our judgment, did you get shoved down there?” he said.
The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck posted a summary of Forde’s explanation on X Tuesday night.
https://x.com/jeff_gluck/status/2115238748183318842
Forde also rejected two theories that spread online after the race: that NASCAR let the move go because Larson had already passed Todd Gilliland‘s No. 34, or because NASCAR wanted Hendrick Motorsports to win another title.
“‘Maybe they let it go because we’re dying for Hendrick Motorsports to win another championship.’ That didn’t play a factor into this at all,” Forde said. “It was just simply in our judgment; [Larson’s] tire was still on the line, and we move on.”
Larson: ‘Much closer than I really thought’
Larson said in a NASCAR Film Room interview with Eric Estepp that he knew during his celebration that he had been close to the line.
“I was also like, ‘Oh, my gosh, please don’t say anything that they’re reviewing it or they called it back,’ because, yeah, I knew I had gotten really close,” Larson said. “And then you see the still photos and stuff like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that was like much closer than I really thought it was.’”
He said he would have understood a penalty. “It was so close that, like if I did get penalized, I could see like, ‘OK, I understand where they’re coming from,’” he said. “I’m just glad, again, it worked out in my favor, and we were able to win.”
What’s next
The win gave Larson a 73-point lead over Denny Hamlin with two races left. The Cup Series races next at Martinsville Speedway in Ridgeway, Virginia, on Sunday, November 1, at 2 p.m. ET on NBC.
Listen to the Hauler Talk episode, “The Field Didn’t Meet Minimum Speed at Talladega?“
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