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Meeting of the minds Drivers, NASCAR meet about mandated yellow
By Stephen Thomas, CNNSI.com LONG POND, Pa. -- It wasn't the gathering of the Dons of the leading crime families, but it was certainly an august group that convened in the red and white NASCAR hauler immediately after the Pocono 500. The first to arrive, not 10 minutes after taking the checkered flag in seventh, and freshly changed, was Tony Stewart, followed by his PR rep who said simply, "This ought to be interesting." Next came Bobby Labonte with his people, owner Joe Gibbs and crew chief Jimmy Makar. Greg Zippadelli, Stewart's crew chief, followed. There were reports that Rusty Wallace made an appearance. When NASCAR president Mike Helton and director Gary Nelson entered the hauler, it was clear the meeting could begin.
At issue was NASCAR's decision to call a competition yellow on lap 25 in order to give teams a chance to check tire-wear in the wake of all the rain that had soaked the track in the days before the race. Ordinarily, decisions such as this are announced at the drivers' meeting that takes place a few hours before the race. Apparently, some teams weren't made aware of NASCAR's decision to flag the race until immediately prior, including Robert Yates, who said he heard nothing at the drivers meeting. As it happened, both Labonte and Stewart, among others, pitted, losing track position as a result. Though the meeting of the minds lasted more than an hour -- an eternity in post-race time given that drivers are normally nowhere to be found shortly after the flag waves -- neither Labonte nor Stewart would comment on the issues discussed. While Labonte said that the group swapped fishing stories, Stewart claimed it was an all-around jolly gathering. "Actually, we laughed a lot," the notoriously hilarious Stewart said. "It was kind of a fun meeting." Somehow, that seems unlikely. Indeed, Helton himself confirmed the seriousness of the discussions. In fact, he did something out of character in today's NASCAR: He took the heat. "There was some comments by crew chiefs that they didn't get the word in time and made their decisions to go ahead and pit," Helton said. "Now, we have to give them the benefit of the doubt and figure that our guys didn't get the message delivered quick enough. This was a situation that we decided after the drivers' meeting was over with and it could have been a situation where the message wasn't completely conveyed up and down pit road correctly from our side, so we'll take this one." While that revelation might not be as significant as Michael Corleone telling Fredo "I know it was you," it was an uncharacteristic show of vulnerability for an organization that rarely, if ever, shows any.
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