NASCAR officials have responded publicly to the criticism of their handling of the race finish at Chicago, where they waited far too long to throw a caution for a severe accident that ultimately ended the race.
Cody Ware was running 18th as race leader Shane van Gisbergen was approaching the white flag. But when a brake rotor exploded at one of the fastest parts of the circuit, Ware was just along for the ride as the No. 51 Ford buried itself into the tire barriers at Turn 6. He slammed the wall at around 90mph.
Despite the severity of the impact, NASCAR waited before throwing the yellow. By the time they did so, SVG had already taken the white flag and so, the race was over. Ware was thankfully unhurt, but questions arose regarding NASCAR's officiating decisions in those critical moments before he climbed from the car.
Why the delay?
Caught this video of Cody Ware’s crash. The speed is incredible but glad he was okay. NSFW for language pic.twitter.com/fuZZIqM7xE
— Chris (@MagnusCheeks) July 6, 2025
According to NASCAR Cup Series Managing Director Brad Moran, the key reason why NASCAR didn't react quicker is simply because they didn't see the initial impact. Unfortunately, this has happened before at road/street courses where race control has either missed certain incidents or didn't fully understand the severity of it.
While some fans were obviously frustrated that the caution didn't fly and create an overtime restart, the real issue here is in regards to safety.
Speaking to SiriusXM NASCAR Radio on Tuesday, Moran explained what happened from the perspective of series officials.
"We didn't have the actual footage of the impact of the car getting into the tire barrier," Moran revealed. "That's something we're gonna take back and we're gonna look at it. If we go back to Chicago, we'll be looking at certain areas of that race track and definitely improving that situation.
He went on to say that NASCAR followed its usual procedures, which was to wave a local blue flag and give the driver an opportunity to pull away from the accident scene. But had they seen the actual crash, they would have immediately known that the car was destroyed.
"If they're in the racing line, it changes the thought process," continued Moran. "If they're out of the racing line, we give them time, which obviously we did throughout the day. I still think we ended up with seven cautions for 15 laps so we do our best to give the fans as much of that time as we can to get green flag racing.
"However, if we would have had the shot of Cody's impact there, the caution would have come out immediately. But it was thrown immediately when he dropped his window net. We give them the opportunity to pull out, but if we would have had that first shot, we would have known that car wasn't pulling out. That's on us, we're gonna go back, we're gonna review it, and if we go back to Chicago, we'll definitely have a different plan."
