NASCAR admits groundbreaking Coronado rule change 'not unanimous'

NASCAR has revealed that the decision to adjust its rules on the fly this weekend at San Diego was 'not unanimous'.

Corey Day's car was badly damaged on the first lap of Saturday's NASCAR O'Reilly Series race at Coronado Naval Base when a loose sewer cover was flung up into it by another car.

The loose cover caused a long red flag period as officials worked to fix it and ensure that all other covers around the 3.4-mile track were properly welded down, while NASCAR lifted their prohibition on teams working on cars under red flag conditions for Day's No. 17 team specifically.

Day was also allowed to make up the four laps that he lost due to the incident, buzzing around the track while the rest of the field dawdled under caution before the restart in order to get back on level terms.

That all represented something of a departure from standard NASCAR procedure, which has famously not granted similar dispensations when cars have been damaged by debris in the past.

Why did NASCAR change its rules for Corey Day at San Diego?

NASCAR Vice President of Racing Communications Mike Forde explained the decision on the Hauler Talk podcast this week, saying: “It was, ‘Hey, what do we do here? Does it feel right that we give Corey Day his four laps back?’ And it wasn’t unanimous. There was some, ‘Well, what have we done before?’ We try to be consistent.”

Addressing the comparison to apparently similar incidents in the past, he said: “In this case, we felt the big thing was this was a temporary course, and it wasn’t built for racing. And so, some of those other ‘racing deals,’ it didn’t exactly match what happened here. This came up on a city street, and (Day) didn’t really do anything wrong.

“It was just horrible, horrible luck. If we can sort of fix that and give him his luck back, we felt that it was the right thing to do.”

What if someone gets a lug nut through the radiator at Sonoma this weekend? Well, don't expect the same kind of leniency.

“Instead of a cover going through the radiator, what if it’s a piece of ballast from another car,” he said. “That’s bad luck, too, but I think we probably will look at that as a little more of a legitimate racing deal that you’ve seen before hundreds of times throughout all levels of racing, and it’s a bummer for that competitor, but it’s kind of part of the game.

“A cover coming off on a street race on a naval base is not typically part of the game, so that’s why we made the decision we did.”

Thank goodness for the EIRI ('except in rare instances') clause, eh?