Drivers still puzzled by debris at Chicagoland

Drivers still puzzled by debris at Chicagoland

(September 24, 2011)

LOUDON, N.H.—What was that mystery metal?

 Carl Edwards said it launched like a boomerang.

 Kyle Busch ran over it and hurt the handling of his car last Monday at Chicagoland Speedway.

 But no one seemed to know what the debris was or where it came from.

 During the telecast of the rain-delayed Geico 400, television analysts characterized the debris as crush panels jettisoned from one of the Sprint Cup cars—origin unknown.

 Busch disagreed.

 “It was heavy, but I have no idea,” Busch told Sporting News on Friday at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. “It’s too hard to tell going 200 mph exactly what it is. It looked like a crush panel, but it was definitely not a crush panel, because it was way heavier than that.”

 Long before Busch ran over the debris, Edwards saw something that made him wonder if his eyes were deceiving him.

 “I thought that it was maybe my imagination or something, because I saw it, and it looked like a piece of metal that got flung like a boomerang and just took off at an amazing height,” Edwards said. “It might have been something outside of the racetrack that I was seeing far away or something, but I only caught it down the back straightaway, and I just wondered if anyone else saw it—but I’m pretty sure it’s a piece of something that came off of a racecar.

 “As high as it was, I can’t imagine, it made it back down to the surface. It probably ended up outside the track.”

 Despite the flying debris, NASCAR didn’t interrupt the race with a late caution. Edwards praised NASCAR for its restraint.

 “I hope they aren’t as quick to throw the cautions in the Chase as they have been,” Edwards said. “I know that could hurt or help you, but in the end, I think it lets the races play out more naturally and lets the fastest cars, the ones with the best strategy, win—instead of late-race cautions to bunch things up.

 “I’m not complaining about the racetrack. The racetracks always look real clean to me, and I’ve never had an issue with too much debris on the track. I’ve always had trouble finding the debris that we’re under caution for.”

 Because no caution was called, the debris was not picked up by a safety truck and identified.

 For all we know, it could have been an early emission from a falling satellite.

By Reid Spencer
Sporting News NASCAR Wire Service