The races in NASCAR have seen tragedies in the past. So whenever a driver has a hairy moment, a car into the wall, a car airborne, everyone holds their breath and prays for the best. Carson Kvapil had one such moment at Kansas during the O’Reilly race as his #1 Chevy flipped and went airborne early in the race. Fortunately, the driver escaped unharmed, but the aftermath of his flip saw some fingers pointed at the governing body with one question: Could the flip have been prevented? This is what insiders Freddie Kraft and Tommy Baldwin feel, as they recently addressed the issue.
Insiders wonder if Carson Kvapil’s flip could’ve been prevented
During the latest episode of the Door Bumper Clear podcast, co-hosts Baldwin and Kraft shared their takes on NASCAR’s role in the Kvapil flip. Baldwin claimed that ‘a lot of stuff’ happened in Turn 1, which mainly included Justin Allgaier’s spin, which didn’t bring out a caution. Mere seconds after that, Kvapil was in the air after making contact with William Byron, hitting the wall, and getting hit from an oncoming Parker Retzlaff.
“I know we’ve been harping on throwing cautions and stuff. There was guys up in the wall. If they did throw that caution, none of that would have happened,” Baldwin said.
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Freddie Kraft revealed that he was caught off guard by Kvapil’s flip because he was hoping NASCAR would throw a caution for the Allgaier spin. “I’ve got one eye on Dean, one eye kind of peeking down at the yellow lights waiting for them to change, and I’m like nothing’s happening. And I look up, and there is a f**king car flipping down the back straight away. To your (Baldwin’s) point, it should have been thrown,” he mentioned.
Kraft clarified that the flip was not directly the result of NASCAR not throwing the yellow. But had a yellow been thrown, the situation with Kvapil could very well have been prevented.
Baldwin later summed up their takes on the subject as he said, “I think that was not a good call.”
This callout from the insiders could potentially lead to NASCAR being more mindful or potentially being overly mindful about pressing the caution button. This was what Denny Hamlin suggested last season after the lack of caution towards the end of the Daytona 500.
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“They’ll react. When they feel like they get trashed socially on a call, then they’ll go the other way on the next one,” Hamlin said.
It’s worth mentioning that NASCAR’s history of throwing and not throwing cautions at the right time or for the right reason goes long back, and has seen many additions in the last few years.
NASCAR and the growing list of ill-timed cautions
In 2016, a caution that was thrown for some minor debris in the penultimate race of the season at Homestead famously cost Carl Edwards his first and only Cup championship.
A late race caution in the Xfinity Series race at the ROVAL in 2024 cost Parker Kligerman a spot in the playoffs just as he was inches away from the start/finish line. But the controversial part was that NASCAR threw the caution much later after Leland Honeyman’s crash into the tire barriers.
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Another controversial caution came last season at Atlanta. A sensational three-wide finish between Kyle Larson, Carson Hocevar, and Christopher Bell was shown a yellow after a late race spin, which confused many, considering NASCAR allowed racing in the final moments of a race even when there were incidents on the track.
Another instance of caution controversy from last season was the 2025 Daytona 500. During the last lap, five cars crashed, but it wasn’t enough for NASCAR to throw the caution flag as racing continued through the wreckage.
These few instances are enough evidence to suggest that NASCAR’s caution-throwing capabilities are a hit or a miss. Perhaps, they have cost drivers, championships, race wins, and a playoff spot. But they’ve also potentially put drivers in dangerous situations, as was the case with Carson Kvapil at Kansas.
Let’s just hope NASCAR finds a solution to this issue before something major happens.
