UPDATE: NASCAR plans to talk to rookie Quin Houff this week about his “very poor decision” to dive down from the second lane in Turn 4 and attempt to enter pit road late in Sunday’s Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Scott Miller, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, was asked on “The Morning Drive” on Monday by NBC Sports’ Nate Ryan about what actions the sanctioning body would take with Houff.
“I think nobody could argue that it was a very poor decision,” Miller said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “Yes, we do review every incident of every race. We didn’t speak to the driver (Sunday) night, but we will before we get going again at Kansas (on Thursday night). Got to do better than that. Racing incident, things are going to happen. Every decision that is made out on the racetrack is an instantaneous, spur-of-the-moment decision, but I think that nobody could argue that wasn’t a poor one.”
— NBC Sports —
ORIGINAL POST: A late-race miscue by rookie Quin Houff carried major ramifications for the outcome of Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Texas Motor Speedway, dramatically altering the playoff picture at the season’s midpoint.
Houff’s ill-timed dive toward the pit-road entrance clipped two cars — the No. 95 Toyota of rookie Christopher Bell and the No. 21 Ford of Matt DiBenedetto — before sending his own No. 00 StarCom Racing Chevrolet careening into the outside retaining wall.
Brad Keselowski, who shares a Penske-related affiliation with Wood Brothers driver DiBenedetto, was among those chiming in with his opinion on the late-race crash.
“I think there are two ways to look at it. There’s the entertainment way to look at it and say that probably created a more entertaining finish, so if you like chaos, then that was good. I think on the other side of that there’s the, ‘Hey, I’m a professional race car driver that’s worked my entire career to get here. Had to jump through a lot of hoops to make it and would like to think that those efforts have created a spot for me in this series to be joined with peers of similar talent levels.’ ”
Keselowski also floated the idea of adding a relegation structure to NASCAR’s developmental ladder.
“One thing I would like to see, and I think I’ve been pretty consistent with this, is I would like to see drivers be able to graduate into this level and equally I’d like to see them be able to be removed from this level when they have repeated issues,” Keselowski said. “I can’t speak enough to the gentleman that had that issue today, but I have seen in the past where drivers that have had this issue multiple times somehow are still here, where I think they should effectively be placed in a lower series or asked to go back to a more minor-league level to prove their salt. But that’s ultimately not my decision to make. It’s what I would like to see, but it’s not my decision to make and until it is, I guess I should probably just shut up, but I certainly think there’s some merit to it.”
—- NASCAR.com —