NASCAR Cup Series

Yellow line could determine Daytona win

Published Feb. 26, 2012 12:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

Confused about NASCAR’s yellow line rule?

Don’t be. The rule concerning crossing the yellow line – which divides the racing surface from the apron on the track at Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway – was established in July 2001 to keep competitors from diving onto the flat to improve their position.

And while the rule has some latitude in terms of being a judgment call, the following words are as familiar to drivers at restrictor-plate tracks as drafting: “This is your warning drivers, race above the yellow line. If in our judgment you go below the yellow line to improve your position, you will be black-flagged. Also we’ll use our judgment if you force someone below the yellow line in an effort from passing you, you may be black-flagged.”

Steve Letarte, crew chief for the No. 88 Hendrick Motorsports team and driver Dale Earnhardt Jr., says the yellow line rule provides “a very clear boundary.”

“And that’s a very good idea,” Letarte said. “If you don’t do that, it becomes very questionable what the racing surface is. I think especially to make these tracks safer – here at Daytona and Talladega, really everywhere, Watkins Glen – you see that a lot of places they’ve paved the runoff area and they did that out of the idea of safety and keeping the cars on the ground and making it a safer area.

“But we’re competitors. If we can go there and run faster we will. So I think it’s important for them to keep them on the racing surface, particularly at restrictor-plate tracks."

There was never a doubt that when Saturday’s Nationwide Series winner James Buescher drove below the yellow line on the final lap of the race as 11 cars crashed in Turn 4, that he was doing so to save his car and not gain an advantage over the field.

“It’s very clear in the drivers meeting what the yellow line is about,” Letarte added. “You can’t go down there with the intent to improve your position and you can’t force someone down there with the intent to defend your position.

“When there’s any sort of accident, it’s no different than pit road. I feel if James Buescher would have gone down pit road and continued to decrease his speed, he still would have been the race winner. The rules are very clear. I’m glad that NASCAR has to be the one that deciphers through it all when the caution comes out because really that’s the only question – where you were running when the yellow came out and that’s very difficult to do in real time.”