Did NASCAR breach its rulebook at Talladega? Exploring how the community reacted to the officials allegedly overstepping the boundaries

The YellaWood 500 was held on October 6, 2024, at NASCAR's longest track and witnessed a huge wreck with just five laps to go in the race. The wreck took place at the backstretch of the superspeedway and was triggered by Austin Cindric when Brad Keselowski bumped into him.

The crash collected 28 cars on the track involving eight of the playoff drivers and stirred up controversies in the realm of motorsports. Recently in his podcast, Actions Detrimental, Joe Gibbs Racing driver Denny Hamlin highlighted how NASCAR allegedly broke the rules at Talladega Superspeedway.

On the other hand, Dirty Mo Media shared a clip of Jeff Gluck talking about the exceptions the racing association made for Chase Elliot and Chase Briscoe. However, Hamlin believes that Ricky Stenhouse Jr.'s win at the YellaWood 500 came against the rules. He mentioned that the left door of the 37-year-old's car was damaged after getting involved in the crash, and the foam went missing, leaving a hole there.

Hamlin then asked his co-host, Jared, to read NASCAR's rule regarding the foam:

"Section 3337 of the Cup Series rulebook states, 'Energy-absorbing foam blocks must be installed on the outside surface of the left and right side door. And B- door foam that has been damaged or crushed must be replaced, effective immediately, May 4th, 2022," Jared said (26:58).

Denny Hamlin further recalled the time when the #4 driver Josh Berry got disqualified for missing bolts on his windshield. But at Talladega Superspeedway the #6 driver Brad Keselowski and #17 driver Chris Buescher both had their roof rails missing and were not disqualified from the race.

Jeff Gluck explained the discrepancies in the new NASCAR DVP policy

The Dirty Mo Media team shared a snippet of a video conference between Jeff Gluck and Jordan Bianchi talking about the changes in the DVP policy. Gluck explained that the DVP rule states that if any driver is unable to drive to the pits on his own, then it results in a DNF for the driver.

But at Talladega, this rule was not applied, and almost all the drivers got the chance to make repairs and head back to the race. Gluck even talked with the former NASCAR driver Elton Sawyer before the conference with Bianchi, and Gluck quoted Sawyer's words:

"It was never intended to take good race cars out of the race, and so they've looked at this and they've said, Hey, you know, we want to try to; if there's a possible way to keep them in the race, let's keep that going." [00:33]

The American journalist then gave the example of Chase Briscoe and Chase Elliot, explaining that they were allowed to race even after being involved in the biggest crash of the NextGen era of NASCAR.

"Because they said, we're trying to not basically, though they're, they're trying to use common sense, I guess, and change the policy a little bit," Gluck commented on the policy. [01:08]

If NASCAR takes action on the YellaWood 500 race held on October 6, 2024, at Talladega Superspeedway, this could lead to a drastic change in the results.