For the second time in recent weeks, NASCAR officials admitted to lining up drivers in the wrong order on a final restart. In Friday night’s Nationwide Series race at Daytona International Speedway, Roush Fenway Racing’s Carl Edwards was lined up fourth for the green-white-checkered restart that followed a late-race accident. Then NASCAR officials ordered him to forfeit a position to Richard Childress Racing’s Clint Bowyer prior to the green flag. The team was arguing the call when the Winn-Dixie 250 was restarted. With chaos and confusion already surrounding the team, Edwards tried to block Mike Bliss on that restart, got into the side of him and slid off the track for a final finish of 11th. he problem started with the wreck that caused that final caution. Nationwide Series Director Joe Balash said that in avoiding the crashing car of Colin Braun, Edwards’ car went into a position where it wasn’t picked up by the scoring loop. “The 60 car, when the incident occurred, had to come way below the yellow line to avoid the incident and he was below where the scoring loops were,” Balash said. “When we back to the freeze the field position, we went back to the last hit on the loops.” The system places the car at the last crossed loop, so since it couldn’t find Edwards’ car, it reverted to the previous loop when he was actually behind Bowyer. He had passed Bowyer between the two loops. To figure it out, NASCAR needed to review video of the incident, which it did after the race.(SceneDaily.com)(7-5-2008)
