NASCAR: Why Johnny Sauter was penalized, Ryan Blaney wasn't for similar moves at Talladega

It wouldn’t be an entertaining NASCAR race without a little controversy, right? And this time, it is, in fact, little, but with how things played out at Talladega Superspeedway on Monday — especially in relation to Saturday’s Truck Series race — there were a few questions about the final lap.

Ryan Blaney won his first Cup Series race of the season and automatically qualified for the next round in the playoffs in Monday’s rain-delayed event. He battled against Ryan Newman and won by .007 seconds — the sixth-closest finish in NASCAR history.

But as Blaney raced to catch and pass Newman, the two made contact, and his No. 12 Ford dipped below the double yellow line on the inside of the track. As NASCAR explained in the drivers’ meeting ahead of the race, per The Athletic‘s Jeff Gluck:

“If, in NASCAR’s judgment, you go below the double yellow line to improve your position, you WILL be black-flagged. If, in NASCAR’s judgment, you force another car below the double yellow line, you MAY be black-flagged.”

After the race, NASCAR reviewed the last lap and determined that Blaney was forced below the yellow line — rather than purposefully going down there to make a move — and that’s why he was not penalized.

Now, this might not seem like that big of a deal, but NASCAR’s decision regarding the Cup race finish was the opposite of how it reacted to the Truck Series finish Saturday. In that race, Johnny Sauter finished first, but NASCAR said he forced driver Riley Herbst and his own No. 13 Ford below the yellow line while blocking.

Sauter was penalized and dropped to the last car on the lead lap, finishing 14th as the win was given to Spencer Boyd.

NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, Scott Miller, explained to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio why these situations were different in officials’ eyes and led to different outcomes.

Miller said:

“First of all, one guy won the race or appeared to have won the race by making that move, and the other didn’t. When you’re talking about Johnny’s situation, he drove all four of his wheels under the yellow line to force down there. So it was obviously a lot more blatant, in our opinion, than what transpired on . Blaney was down there, Ryan wasn’t down there, but certainly, in our opinion, drove him down there.

“And we reserve the right to call a car that forces another down below the yellow line. We can kind of use our judgement, assess the situation. No two ones of those situations are the same, so there’s some subjectivity in it, which isn’t the greatest thing for us.

“But I think that we’re very happy with the calls that we made and feel like both of them were right. But as far as the elephant in the room, those two incidents were very, very different from one another in our opinion.”

If NASCAR was operating under the rules is explicitly explained in the drivers’ meeting and if it argues Newman forced Blaney below the yellow line, shouldn’t Newman have been penalized then? He finished second.

According to NBC Sports, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio also asked Miller if if the double yellow line rule will be examined in the future. He responded:

“The language of the rule is fine,” Miller said. “There’s always going to be judgment unless we put a wall down there or grass there or something like that. Those things would have their own set of large problems associated with them. We’ve looked at the language many times and have landed on where we are to let us make the calls we feel like are necessary for certain situations.

“If we didn’t have the yellow line rule, there’s no telling what might ensue with all the skid paths and everything leading into the back straight being so wide. We would find guys getting to the other end having no place to go but the apron. We have to enforce the yellow line rule and we are where we are. We look at everything every time when we have to make a call, all of our rules, not only race procedures, but technical rules as well.

“We’re constantly trying to get better. … I mean the yellow line rule is not something that we enjoy by any stretch of the imagination. But we have to have it. If we didn’t, there’d be even more mayhem more than likely.”

This rule is particularly questionable because it’s not enforced consistently, and that doesn’t just apply to the 48-hour window at Talladega this weekend. As noted NASCAR historian @nascarman_rr  detailed in a Twitter moment — which now includes the events of the weekend — the yellow line rule has been selectively applied.