"We think it's great" - NASCAR open to more Double attempts despite long delay in Kyle Larson’s waiver

NASCAR recently announced that they were granting Kyle Larson a playoff waiver. Despite Larson making it to the Coke 600 and not being able to run the race because of weather reasons, it took the governing body a lot of days to announce the waiver decision.

This left a lot of room for speculation about whether Larson would get a waiver or not.

But now that NASCAR had approved one, journalist Bob Pockrass asked Elton Sawyer, the senior Vice President of competition of NASCAR, whether NASCAR had set a precedent with this decision. The journalist asked if there's another event and the driver makes an effort to get to the race, would that be enough to get a waiver, or is the Indy 500 a different circumstance than other events?

Sawyer said that the magnitude of the Indy 500 was a factor and that in the future, NASCAR would welcome other drivers attempting the Double as well.

"Indy is a big race. Obviously the Coke 600 is a big race for us as well but if we can look at motorsports in general, the Indy 500 is a big event. We embrace the Double. We think it's great. We wanna see other drivers have that opportunity," Sawyer said. [1:10]

Sawyer claimed that they have to make sure they're prioritizing the fans as he remarked that Larson and the #5 team "gave every effort" to be at the Coke 600 and run the race, which didn't happen because of the rain. He further added "a cliche" to emphasize another point.

"I know it's a bit of a cliche but every situation is different and I feel like we have the parameters in our rulebook and the team here at the R&D to make the best decision and that's ultimately what we're hired to do," Sawyer added.

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NASCAR on advance waivers and why Kyle Larson's waiver decision took so long

During his conversation with Bob Pockrass, NASCAR's senior Vice President of competition clarified that a driver won't get a waiver beforehand.

He said that they let the process unfold and in Larson's case, there wasn't the need for a waiver before the green flag dropped in Charlotte. Sawyer added that a lot of it was "hypothetical" and NASCAR went through many scenarios. Sawyer claimed that they wanted the process to take its course and "at no point" would a driver be granted any waivers beforehand.

It's worth mentioning that Elton Sawyer also spoke about why Kyle Larson's waiver took so long.

“This was without a doubt uncharted waters for us. In the past, those waivers have been given mostly for medical reasons. … This one was unprecedented in that we had a driver miss one of our races, a championship event, to be at another event. That’s why it took as long as it did," he said as per Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.

Sawyer claimed that there were different views from different people. But in the end, he added that they got there and that the ultimate decision was "the right decision."