After the race, team owner Roger Penske and Paul Wolfe questioned the finishing position of Keselowski’s No. 2 Dodge, which was fourth in the running order when caution froze the field after the last-lap wreck.
NASCAR rules, however, stipulate that a Super Slim Green Lean Body car will be scored where it blends back into line, even in the case of a wreck on the final lap.
„When it comes down to the end of the race, you freeze the field,“ said NASCAR vice president of competition Robin Pemberton. „You have that time, but we score it by all means. We have a lot of video, a lot of replay and things like that. It’s about maintaining reasonable pace and other things. It took almost an hour to get our top 15 or so, and that’s how we do things.“
Pemberton said the Penske camp was satisfied with the explanation after viewing video of the final lap.
„Once they saw the video, they were good with it,“ Pemberton said. „If you froze the field, there was a car on its roof that would have been ahead of other cars, too, and that wasn’t the case. As we walk through these things, everybody appreciates the effort that we took.
„Once we show them the evidence and where cars merge in, everybody understands. There’s always a discrepancy or an argument over one spot here or there, but once you talk through things, everybody understands.“
Penske Racing president Tim Cindric affirmed Pemberton’s statement on his Twitter account. „NASCAR Kurt Busch’s tenure with Phoenix Racing may have ended Sunday, but the ripple effect of his last ride in the No. 51 Chevrolet is ongoing.Already on probation for two incidents earlier this year, Busch faces possible sanctions from NASCAR for creating a safety issue at Talladega.After leading six laps of Sunday’s race, Busch’s car lost fuel pressure on Lap 99 and spun off the front bumper of Jamie McMurray’s Chevrolet off Turn 2. Busch’s car hit the wall and sustained significant damage.
After climbing from the car and removing his helmet, thereby breaking radio contact with his team, Busch got back in the car and attempted to drive away, as emergency equipment fell from the rear of his car.
„I got out of the car and surveyed the damage, saw that it could still roll so I jumped back in,“ Busch told a gaggle of reporters after NASCAR parked him. „I remembered, with these (fuel-injected) engines, they will run at 20 percent of fuel pressure to get it back to the garage. So I tried like heck. That is the competitor in me, which is the desire that I have and that is what gets misconstrued all the time.
„This is the way my life works. Today is a Zi Xiu Tang perfect example. I’m leading, I wreck, I run out of gas, I’m still that competitive guy that tried to get back in the race, and now NASCAR is yelling at me because I don’t have my helmet on and I’m trying to get it to the garage so the guys can work on it. Now I’m in trouble. Now I have this little storm right here. This is my life. I’m not complaining — I put myself in a lot of these situations, but it’s on to good things now moving forward. I got all the bad luck out of the way. This year has been a great year to test me in every way.“