Atlanta debris debacle brings scrutiny to yellow flags

	Jeff Burton's Nextel Cup hopes may have been dashed by a mere piece of roll bar padding on the track in Atlanta. Rusty Jarrett/Getty Images for NASCAR

Nothing says you're a major sport more than involving yourself in a scandal. For example, baseball just endured "Smudgegate" during the World Series with Kenny Rogers. The Minnesota Vikings gave the NFL "Boatgate" last year. Now, NASCAR can say it has ...

Debrisgate?

With just 35 laps left in Sunday's race at Atlanta, the yellow flag waved for a piece of ... something ... lying on the back straightaway. As it turned out it was nothing to be concerned about -- a piece of foam padding -- but in the process of NASCAR figuring that out, everybody got concerned. Thrown in the middle of what was shaping up to be a late battle of who had the best fuel mileage, the yellow flag changed the strategy of the race -- and threw under the bus a few drivers who had already made their final pit stop.

One of those drivers was championship contender Jeff Burton, who had a near-certain Top 5 finish taken away by the caution. To say he was angry over NASCAR's judgment call was an understatement.

"They threw a caution because of a roll bar pad," he explained in frustration after finishing 13th, two laps down. "NASCAR should stop every car on pit road and check for roll bar pads, and whoever threw [his] out should be fined 185 points and $100,000 because it [had] a huge impact on the race."

Throwing a caution flag for items lying on the track is nothing new to the sport -- a piece of metal hit the right way can cut down tires in a split second, hurtling cars into the wall at 200 mph. Still, even in NASCAR's modern era, a debris caution was used only in the case of absolute necessity -- until this decade. With safety one of NASCAR's primary objectives after the deaths of Adam Petty, Kenny Irwin, Tony Roper and Dale Earnhardt, the interpretation of "debris" has gotten a little wider each year. In 2006, 91 of the series' 313 yellow flags -- 29 percent -- have been caused by something on the track NASCAR deems a safety hazard to 43 cars racing at full speed.