There were some controversial events that occurred towards the end of the Richmond race this past weekend, but the most evident one was Carl Edwards getting the black flag for a violation of restart rules.
Here's my views on what happened.
I saw a lot of people on Twitter complaining about Carl not knowing whether he was the leader or not, and that the NASCAR official that informed his team he was leading cheated him out of a win. Honestly, I can understand people's anger toward the situation, but from an unbiased viewpoint, whether Tony or Carl was the leader on that restart was completely irrelevant to the reasoning behind Carl's black flag. In the driver's meeting video every week, there is a segment on restarts. The segment clearly states that the track has a restart box, and it is at the leader's discretion as to when he restarts, as long as he is inside the restart box. Even if Carl had been the leader, he violated the restart rules by accelerating before the box. If I were Carl or Bob Osborne, in the heat of the moment, I would have been angry as well.. until I reviewed the video. It's clear that Carl violated the rules, and although Tony spinning his tires amplified Carl's rule infraction, it was a rule infraction none-the-less.. and the penalty is completely fair.
This is a video I found of a driver's meeting video in Texas. It's not the best quality, but you get the point. For restart rules, skip to 1:49.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfadYP2eBn8
