Fans show anger over ending of Pepsi 400
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Lodged in the safety of the cockpit of his No. 2 Miller Lite Ford, Rusty Wallace circulated the last three laps of Saturday night's Pepsi 400 at Daytona International Speedway shaking his head.
After racing back to a yellow flag with only three laps to go, behind Michael Waltrip, he didn't know what to make of what he was seeing.
"I've never seen anybody be so jubilant for Michael Waltrip winning in my life," Wallace said. "I saw all those Pepsi seat cushions come over and I said, 'What in the world is going on?' The back straightaway was so littered with beer cans and Pepsi things you couldn't have done nothing."
What was going on was a fan insurrection, the likes of which may have never been witnessed in the modern era, launched by an incomprehensible NASCAR policy that caused Friday night's Busch Series Stacker 2/GNC Live Well 250 to be red flagged with four laps to go so it could have a green flag finish while Saturday night's race ended under caution.
If a similar pattern had been followed, the field would have stopped in Turn 2 with three laps to go, would have been given one lap to go before green with two laps to go and would have had a one-lap run to the finish.
The fans would have accepted that. But as it was, hundreds of them -- judging by the litter that included everything from the ubiquitous seat cushions to cameras and pizza boxes that absolutely covered the backstretch -- were far from pleased.
"That was wild," driver Jeremy Mayfield said. "I had some sort of bottle or something bounce right off my hood. "I guess they were mad because no one knows when races are going to be stopped and when they aren't. We don't understand it, either.
"But if they went back green, it was going to be mayhem for the last lap. I guess we got it anyway with the fans throwing all that stuff."
NASCAR has no clear-cut rule on stopping races.
They halted the Daytona 500 here in February to ensure a competitive finish after a multi-car pileup with seven laps to go.
A week later, in almost an identical situation, it reversed its stance at Rockingham and allowed the race to continue to an anticlimactic yellow-flag finish. They stopped the race in Michigan last month when caution came out with six laps to go.
Credit: VPS Autostock
But they didn't do it here, which was consistent with how NASCAR officials have explained how they make the decision.
When a red flag comes out, there has to be enough laps left in the race for the pace car to first pick of the field and go around the track once, then the pits have to be opened on the next lap to give cars an opportunity for service.
That would have left one lap left on Saturday night, which NASCAR said was not enough time for a green-flag finish.
"I'm totally comfortable that we did the right thing tonight," NASCAR spokesman Jim Hunter said.
The fans disagreed.
"They were throwing things because they were upset," Michael Brody of Deltona, Fla., said. "You have to be able to come here and know what to expect. You can't come here and have something different every time."
"All I can say is Michael's victory was tainted, man," an unidentified fan said.
"The race should have finished under green," Don Smith of Deltona -- who said he had not missed a Daytona 500 or Pepsi 400 since 1970 -- said. "It should be the same for every race, finish under the same rules. The last five laps, no matter what, they should stop the cars, clean up the mess and go to green."
"A lot of them didn't understand what was going on," Steve McKenzie of Longwood, Fla., said. "They didn't understand why it would be one way last night and this way tonight. We looked at it as there were three laps to go and they should have ran it under green.
"You never know what's going to happen on that last lap -- anything could have happened to Michael."
McKenzie said it was not the first time he had been puzzled by the outcome of a NASCAR event.
"All I know if that in years past I've seen it at the end like that when it was five laps or less, they caution it and it stops right there," he said. "They should have a consistent policy. There should be something written down. If you get pulled over for DUI -- consistently it's .08. Law enforcement does not let you go after that -- that's consistent.
"I'm not saying NASCAR needs to be like law enforcement, but they do need to run it like an organization that's like any other organization -- consistent, so you know what to expect."
Hunter said the sanctioning body made the decision based on not having enough time to safely restart the event.
Another fan that declined to give his name said he would return to the track, but he might not understand what he had witnessed any better.
"This is the first time I have been to a race, and the race was great," he said. "But at the end it was really anticlimactic and that was a little disappointing."
Apparently, judging by the lack of asphalt visible on the backstretch half an hour after the checkers, that was a popular opinion of an unpopular decision.
