“I don’t know when they submitted it and what is usually the timeline of accepting or denying in a certain amount of time,” Hamlin stated.
“I believe they did their best effort to get there. I certainly appreciate NASCAR’s desire to protect themselves from similar situations in the future, but I believe they made a good faith effort to race.
” His 23XI Racing driver, Tyler Reddick, didn’t say much other than ‘worry’ that NASCAR isn’t granted the waiver right away.
“Yeah, it’s concerning,” Reddick said. “It’s really concerning and that’s all I’ll say right now.”
As Chase Briscoe points out, while also recognizing why it would make NASCAR uncomfortable to immediately grant, this is the Indianapolis 500 and the double attempt has been beneficial to NASCAR over the years with the likes of Tony Stewart, Robby Gordon, Kurt Busch and John Andretti.
“I’m torn on it (and) I don’t quite know which way I lean,” Briscoe said. “I think that, it’s tough because there was never an intention to miss a Cup race but obviously, but when you sign up to run the Cup Series, it’s part of the deal that you run every single race.
“At the same time, I’m from Indiana so I certainly understand the significance of the Indianapolis 500. I feel like, it’s just a tough spot to be in because if you don’t get the waiver, there will be less guys who want to run the double. I don’t know. I really don’t know which way I lean. I’m 50/50. It’s a tough spot to be in.”
NASCAR is legitimately, fairly, in a tough spot.
On one hand, they have issued waivers for drivers who have missed huge fractions of the season due to injuries. One of them, Busch, went on to win the championship in 2015. It also issued a waiver to Chase Elliott and Johnny Sauter after suspensions for intentionally wrecking another competitor.
Is that more deserving of a waiver than Larson missing a race due to a worst-case scenario, cross-geographic storm? The case could be made that those were things that happened in a NASCAR race to where this was choosing a race in another discipline over the NASCAR Cup Series — something Daytona Beach would be loathe to set as a precedence.
But again, as Ty Gibbs also points out, this is Larson — who has done more to grow racing holistically than anyone in North America.
“He’s really important to our sport and it was really good for NASCAR to have him there,” Gibbs said. “I don’t have a say so in the decision but that’s what I think.”
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