NASCAR BLACK-FLAGS JOHNSON, COSTING HIM SHOT AT DOVER VICTORY
NASCAR: The call to penalize Jimmie Johnson on the final restart of Sunday’s Dover race was a no-brainer, officials said afterward.
“Can you even ask this with a straight face?” NASCAR Vice President of Competition Robin Pemberton said as he looked at a group of reporters.
With 19 laps to go, Johnson was restarting in second place after a caution; race leader Juan Pablo Montoya was on the outside. But when Johnson zoomed off to the lead, NASCAR officials threw a black flag and called Johnson to pit road. The second-place driver is not allowed to beat the leader to the starting line.
“He left early and he didn’t give it back like we tell them all the time when this type of thing comes up,” Pemberton said. “It’s pretty cut and dry. ... That was an easy call. Very easy call.”
Johnson, though, said he “totally disagreed” with the call after finishing 17th. As he prepared to hit the gas, Montoya never got going. The No. 42 car was so slow, Johnson said, he wondered if a part had broken on it.
“I didn’t know if he broke, had contact (or) spun the tires and hit the outside wall,” Johnson said. “I had no clue. At some point, I had to go and they called me on it.”
Drivers are allowed to slow down and give the spot back without a penalty, but Johnson said he waited several seconds with no results.
“At a certain point, I didn’t even know if he was still on the road or under power,” Johnson said. “I wish they would have seen that a little differently.” IndyCar: IndyCar has come up with a strategy through 2021 to make its cars faster and safer in hopes of winning back old fans and attracting new ones. Now it’s up to team owners to sign off on the plans.
“We won’t ram it down their throat,” Derrick Walker, IndyCar president of competition, said Sunday at a news conference before the second of two Detroit Grand Prix races.
Walker outlined a year-by-year plan to introduce gradual changes and said they will be put in place only when a majority of the owners and all of the manufacturers agree with the proposals. And if that doesn’t happen? “We’d say, ‘Forget it, we’ll take it off the table,’ ” Walker said.