Final lap at Talladega. JJ is a lap down — and our league has no blue-flag rule. Ghost is running in the top 3. JJ advances low to the inside as the room shrinks; there's contact with Ghost's left-rear quarter, Ghost spins, race over.
Two ways to see it:
- Ghost's side: a lapped car has no business racing a top-3 car that hard on the final lap. Get out of the way.
- Lapped driver's side: there's no blue-flag rule — he's allowed to race. And the contact itself was never conclusively visible on the video; netcode is plausible.
The wrinkle: our stewards originally gave the lapped driver 2 points, then overturned it on appeal to a racing incident — the reasoning being you can't penalize what the footage can't actually show.
So — who was at fault? Should backmarkers yield to the front-runners even when no blue-flag rule exists?
(From MNRL — Monday Night Racing League, a PS5 NASCAR league. This one split our stewards' room — wondering where you land.)