Speaking on the official ‘competition communications’ podcast for NASCAR, Hauler Talk, Cup Series race director Jusan Hamilton concedes he should have kept the finish to the first Daytona Duel on Thursday green.

Erik Jones appeared to have won the race in a photo finish at the line but race control had called a caution just short of the line believing the additional seconds to mobilize safety workers was paramount,.

“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.”

That call seemed especially egregious given how the Daytona 500 finished — with a race that remained green to the end despite a final lap crash that also contained several big hits.

But Hamilton says that race stayed green because the crash had taken place past the wall cut out in Turn 2 that allows safety vehicles to quickly access the track.  

“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.”

Hamilton says there are weekly competition meetings to discuss where every element of race control can be improved and these calls were no different.

“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.”