Hauler Talk: Race director Jusan Hamilton discusses calls made at Daytona

NASCAR race director Jusan Hamilton joined the latest episode of the “Hauler Talk” podcast for a behind-the-scenes look inside the scoring tower and how cautions are called.

He also admitted to questioning some of his own calls — such as the yellow flag just before the finish of the second Duel qualifying race last week at Daytona International Speedway,

“So hindsight is always 20/20, and that’s one when you look back, I would say we could do it differently,” Hamilton said. “I would say that we could let them get to the start/finish line, but that’s looking back now on a Tuesday, going through all of our reviews and having the luxury of time to review the full situation.”

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Hamilton, who is one of four race directors who works NASCAR‘s top three national series, also explained the decision to hold the yellow and allow the Daytona 500 to end under the checkered flag.

Daytona has two primary “cutouts” in the infield that allow safety crews to scramble onto the track toward a crash. One is in Turn 1, which puts crews heading toward race traffic. The other, in Turn 2, lets crews exit into the flow of the race direction. Because the final Daytona 500 crash occurred on the backstretch, Hamilton said NASCAR was comfortable with safety vehicles reaching the scene without the interference of race traffic, so the race ended under green.

“As soon as the wreck happens, because all vehicles have passed by that Turn 2 cutout, we’re able to respond, sending the fire trucks, the ambulances, the AMR chase vehicles to respond to that incident before the leaders even made it to the checkered, even though there’s no caution,” Hamilton said. “Moving forward and always, our goal is to get to a green-flag finish. We do not want to be the ones determining the race by how fast we push the caution button or the decisions that we make in race control in general. We want that to be decided by the competitors on the ground. So any opportunity that we have to do that, we’re going to take advantage.

“But, and I know this is not generally something that a fan at home is thinking about certainly, but the function of the caution is about safety, and that is something that the race directors and emergency services coordinators have to be aligned on.

“So, if we see something that rises to the level that we have to immediately respond — for instance, a vehicle leaving the ground or vehicles barreling down on other vehicles that are already in a wreck at a high rate of speed — we have to react to that. And that story may not always be told by what you’re watching in the broadcast, but from the resources that we have in the tower and past experience studying these races and trying to improve as an entire group.”

After NASCAR‘s weekly competition briefing, Hamilton said the race directors have a separate weekly call to review video from the most recent races “and break down the calls that could have been done better and differently.

“The weight of getting these calls correct is definitely not lost on us,” he said. “And our goal is to obviously do better as we move forward.”

Other topics covered during the second episode of “Hauler Talk,” which explores competition issues in NASCAR with co-hosts Mike Forde and Amanda Ellis of the communications department:

— The next steps being taken with Ryan Preece‘s car after his airborne wreck at Daytona.

— The potential for rules changes ahead of the race at Talladega Superspeedway.

— The new Damaged Vehicle Policy rules that affected Kyle Busch at the end of the Daytona 500.

— How calls on weather were made at Daytona.

Click on the embed above to listen or search for “Hauler Talk” wherever you download podcasts to hear it on your phone, tablet or mobile device.

Nate Ryan has written about NASCAR since 1996 while working at the San Bernardino Sun, Richmond Times-Dispatch, USA TODAY and for the past 10 years at NBC Sports Digital. He also has covered various other motorsports, including the IndyCar and IMSA series.