LINCOLN, Ala. — It was almost a complete sweep for JR Motorsports with drivers Carson Kvapil and Justin Allgaier when the duo won both stages at Talladega Superspeedway during Saturday’s (April 25) NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race.
Except for when they exited pit road on the final green flag pit stop on lap 75, the two JRM drivers veered into the backstretch ahead of oncoming traffic, forcing the likes of Jesse Love to swing wide to avoid the merging Chevrolets.
The result? Penalties for the two of them, and they’re not sure why.
“Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I didn’t even know that was a thing, really,” Kvapil told Frontstretch. “I feel like every Talladega, Daytona [International Speedway] race we watch, it always seems like it happens, and I guess it’s on me for not knowing that that’s a rule, and I broke the rule. Just sucks. I feel like I’ve seen it happen a lot, and I didn’t even know what they were talking about at first.”
Three laps after their merging onto the backstretch, NASCAR officials handed the two drive-through penalties that forced them into pit road in the final 35 laps of the race. As one can imagine, it ruined their race. Kvapil and Allgaier finished 22nd and 23rd, respectively, after logging the remainder of the race far from the lead pack.
The ruling stems from NASCAR officials telling drivers not to impede cars when exiting pit lane during each week’s driver’s meeting. However, despite the rule being in the NASCAR rule book and on the driver’s meeting video, Allgaier believes he has never seen it enforced.
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anybody get called for it if I’m being honest with you,” Allgaier said on pit road post-race. “Like I said, it’s disappointing. It is what it is. It took us out of a good finish. Still finished better than I thought we were going to, so I guess there’s a silver lining in that.”
To top it off, the driver of the No. 7 doesn’t believe his impediment was as egregious as officials made it seem. In other words, he doesn’t believe it was as unsafe as other examples of impediments in the past. For him, it seemed like the two were well out of the way of oncoming traffic.
“I felt like the worst part was we both pulled up to the top there,” Allgaier said. “I was going to let him go to my bottom, and when it started, I went left, and I realized they were coming, and then they all went to the left of me, so I don’t know.
“It’s not like it was so egregious [as] Kevin Lepage a couple of years ago, right? Like it wasn’t like that. It’s a different situation.”
Allgaier referenced an incident during an O’Reilly Series race at Talladega in 2008 in which Lepage merged into the pack while entering turn 1 at a slow pace, causing a massive pileup and plenty of ire from the NASCAR community.
“I mean, yeah, could it have gotten worse than it was? Yeah, absolutely,” Allgaier continued. “If somebody were going to pull a Cleetus [McFarland], I guess somebody who zigged when they should have zagged, then it’s a different story, but that didn’t happen.”
So, was it fair? Despite the ruling ruining both of their chances, the JRM drivers still tried to see it from a standpoint of fairness.
“I don’t know what the right answer is, right?” Allgaier said. “I think that on the Cup side, it’s accepted on a regular basis. I don’t know what the right answer is because at the end of the day … it goes green from there on out, I guess. So, you know how you net off the end of pit road, I think, is how the race goes, so I don’t know if there’s a good answer.”
While Kvapil left the Alabama behemoth confused and a little frustrated, he understands the ruling was a result of his own doing.
But still, he felt there was a precedent that had been set.
“I feel like I’ve seen it happen a lot,” Kvapil said. “I didn’t even know what they were talking about at first … Like I said, I didn’t even know that was a rule, so it’s on me and I needed to be up more on the rules on that stuff.
“I just didn’t even know.”
Dalton Hopkins began writing for Frontstretch in April 2021. Currently, he is the lead writer for the weekly Thinkin' Out Loud column, co-host of the Frontstretch Happy Hour podcast, and one of our lead reporters. Beforehand, he wrote for IMSA shortly after graduating from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2019. Simultaneously, he also serves as a Captain in the US Army.
Follow Dalton on Twitter @PitLaneCPT
JRM is winning too much. Fat Rick the felon is getting pissed. Let’s make a new rule.
What are they whining about? Josh Williams had a piece of tape I believe, fall off of his car once and he was parked. Drive thru seems light compared to that.