{"id":457211,"date":"2026-02-06T08:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457211\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T08:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:11:07","slug":"insider-calls-out-nascar-for-hand-holding-teams-amid-weather-fuel-issues-at-clash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/457211\/","title":{"rendered":"Insider calls out NASCAR for ‘hand-holding’ teams amid weather, fuel issues at Clash"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NASCAR<\/a> Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium wasn\u2019t without its issues. Beyond the weather postponing the event to Wednesday night, the race itself featured several questionable decisions from NASCAR.<\/p>\n

At the halfway mark of the race, sleet arrived in Winston-Salem, N.C. NASCAR, despite the teams having wet-weather tires at their disposal, decided to delay the race to allow officials time to dry the track. Teams were then instructed to put the wet-weather tires on before the race resumed. When a fuel stop was made on Lap 165, Carson Hocevar and the No. 77 team put on slicks. They were penalized for doing so. <\/p>\n

Jeff Gluck of The Athletic had a major issue with NASCAR \u201chand-holding\u201d the teams during the Clash. He called for more freedom for teams to take risks and live with the outcome. <\/p>\n

\u201cI really don\u2019t like the situation where I feel like NASCAR is still hand-holding the teams a little bit too much,\u201d Gluck said on The Teardown<\/a>. \u201cWith the wet-weather tires, we saw it the first year that we need to declare it a wet-weather race or whatever it is and get everyone to do this. Just let the teams, as in F1, \u2018Hey, we\u2019re taking a risk here. Is it going to be good enough for dry tires or do we need wet tires?\u2019 If it\u2019s wet tires, come on in and take wet tires. If you want to take your risk on dry tires, use your dry tires. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever happens, it\u2019s what happens, right? That\u2019s part of the racing and part of the strategy. I don\u2019t like having the full field come down and make a decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

NASCAR Clash had plenty of controversy<\/p>\n

The aforementioned pit stop for fuel was mandated by NASCAR after multiple cars ran out of fuel on the racetrack. James Small, crew chief for Chase Briscoe and the No. 19 team, took issue<\/a> with NASCAR giving a lifeline to teams who didn\u2019t put enough fuel in before the race.<\/p>\n

Essentially, those teams who had enough fuel for the finish saw their strategy go up in smoke. Gluck felt NASCAR mismanaged the situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s also what I didn\u2019t like about the whole fuel situation, right? \u2026 So, the teams that needed fuel that didn\u2019t fuel their tanks before as James Small was saying, they got bailed out by this decision to have everyone come down,\u201d Gluck said. \u201cThe teams that were gonna be good, like, their strategy got thwarted essentially. <\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, that\u2019s fine if the teams didn\u2019t want to fill up their fuel tank all the way but that\u2019s a risk you take if you run out of fuel. You made your cars lighter and that\u2019s too bad. I don\u2019t want to see this continued pattern of we gotta do this or everyone is gonna run out.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NASCAR Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium wasn\u2019t without its issues. Beyond the weather postponing the event to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-457211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}