NASCAR Accused Of Rigging Race After Controversial Kyle Larson Victory At The Brickyard 400

Kyle Larson returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday, two months after a failed attempt at the Indy 500/Coke 600 double broke his heart, and won the Brickyard 400.

It represented the completion of an incredible story. It’s a story that, for some NASCAR fans, was too good to be true.

Larson won the race in highly controversial fashion, leading fans to suggest that NASCAR may well have rigged the result in his favor.

Larson was fast all day. But late in the race, he found himself stuck behind both Brad Keselowski and Ryan Blaney with laps winding down.

A late-race caution bunched the field up and seemingly gave Larson one last shot at victory.

Kyle Larson’s Brickyard 400 Victory Came In Highly Controversial Fashion

Prior to the restart, Keselowski ran out of fuel and pulled off the track, moving Larson all the way from third to first on the restart. Blaney, meanwhile, remained in second and watched Larson surge to the lead on the preferred line when the race restarted.

Shortly after, another wreck sent the race back under caution and into a second overtime.

“There’s no way they should’ve let that go green. That’s ridiculous,” Blaney said on the radio. “They just GAVE it to him (Kyle Larson). It’s f—— over, I’m on the top. I ain’t gonna win from the top. Gave it to f—— golden boy. Son of a b—-.”

But things would get even more contentious.

As the race restarted again, Larson pulled away from Blaney on the preferred line before pole-sitter Kyle Larson passed Blaney for second.

That’s when driver Ryan Preece went spinning and crashing into the inside wall. A caution at the time would have caused another restart. Instead, NASCAR waited over half a lap before throwing the caution flag. That allowed Larson to pass the start-finish line and see the white flag, essentially ending the race.

Fans felt NASCAR manipulated the finish to get its preferred winner.

“What a f—— joke. @NASCAR  100% manipulated that finish, they knew Preece was dead on the back stretch and intentionally waited for Larson to take the white flag before they called for caution. F—— horrendous,” one fan tweeted.

“Rigged to ensure Larson won. NASCAR is absolute garbage. It should’ve been a caution and has been a caution in the past much faster. It’s simple nonsense,” said another.

NASCAR competition director Elton Sawyer claimed that the series made the right call.

“Obviously we’d like for it to play out naturally,” Sawyer said. “We want our teams to race to the checkered flag. We did everything we possibly could. We kept an eye on the 41. He got turned around. He was really giving a solid effort and once he came to a stop and we could tell that he had, I think, a flat left-rear tire he wasn’t going to move. We’d already taken the white, we just couldn’t run by there again. So it was unfortunate, but it was the right call.”

But fans didn’t see it that way.

As for the “Golden Boy” label, Larson was happy to take it.

What’s done is done. But NASCAR has a lot of work to do to get back in the good graces of its fans.