Was NASCAR Right or Wrong In Their Telling Keselowski To ‘Take It Easy’ Around Chase Drivers?

O.k. Keselowski was racing in the top 5 early in the race and he was apparently told by NASCAR not to race the Chase drivers too hard.

Keselowski eventually finished 13th.

So was NASCAR right in issuing their warning to Keselowski or not?

Well I’m going to be honest with you here unless I know exactly what NASCAR said for sure (is there a sound bite somewhere?) anything I say about this subject might not be based on the actuality of the situation but here goes anyway.

If NASCAR did indeed tell Keselowski not to race the Chase drivers too hard then I think they were wrong in doing so. How can you tell a racer to back off and not race the cars around them? Not fair. Not to mention how bad that looks to the racing fans - I wouldn’t be surprised if some fans accused NASCAR of manipulating the outcome of the race as a result.

What I think happened was this; NASCAR probably did not directly warn Keselowski not to race the Chase drivers too hard but instead reminded him that there were Chase drivers around him and he should be careful and this was taken as a warning as to not race the Chasers too hard.

Honestly I can see NASCAR letting a driver, especially one who is not racing for points, know that they have others around them that have a significant amount to lose compared to them if they make a mistake. I think it is fair for NASCAR to give a driver a ‘heads-up’ or a reminder of what else is happening on the track in order to be pro-active so that no one is driving over their head.

So what do you think? I’d love to hear it.