Freddie Kraft shreds NASCAR over failure to throw caution immediately after scary Cody Ware wreck

Freddie Kraft, spotter for Bubba Wallace, called it “completely unacceptable” for NASCAR to wait as long as they did in throwing the caution after Cody Ware slammed into the tire barriers on Lap 74 of Sunday’s Chicago Street Race. Ware crashed head-on into the tire barriers traveling 93 mph after losing his brakes.

“It’s completely unacceptable that caution didn’t come out within 30 seconds of him hitting the wall as hard as he did. … My problem is you need to know how hard the car hits the wall. They have a camera in every corner,” Kraft said on the Door Bumper Clear podcast. “I know you can’t watch every camera at the same time, but they have a camera in every corner.

“You also have guys working in every corner. If those corner workers are not capable of saying, ‘We need to throw the f*cking yellow, this guy just hit the wall running 100 mph,’ we need to reevaluate. They need to put better people in these positions because I think a lot of them were city workers.”

Immediately after the impact, Ware radioed to his team, “Need help.” NASCAR, however, waited nearly 35 seconds before throwing the caution flag. By then, race leader and eventual winner Shane van Gisbergen had taken the white flag, meaning the next flag would end the race. 

Rain and lightning were rapidly approaching downtown Chicago at the time of Ware’s collision. Kraft believes that played a role in NASCAR’s decision to withhold from throwing the yellow. Kraft added he doesn’t want to hear any excuses from NASCAR.

Freddie Kraft goes off on NASCAR over Cody Ware head-on collision at Chicago

“It was very clear yesterday we were worried about weather, and we were trying to get the race in. … It was very obvious we were not going to throw a yellow there because rain was coming. And listen, it was raining by the time I got back to the hauler. If that happened, it was going to be a bit of a shitshow,” Kraft said. “We were probably going to add God knows how much time to the race because we were going to have to stop, come in, put the wet weather tires on and now you’re talking about a green-white-checkered with the wets on.

“I’ve always said a caution is a caution, no matter what, but for me, it just felt like an opportunity of, ‘OK, we’re going to wait here a second.’ It drove me crazy because it’s a caution. … At the end of the day, I don’t want to hear excuses. I want them to come out and say, ‘Cody, we’re sorry, we will do better next time,’ because that needed to be a caution as hard as that kid hit the wall. He’s asking for help as soon as he hits the wall — that needed to be an instant yellow and it felt like 35 seconds was way too long.”

Cup Series managing director Brad Moran admitted Tuesday they did not see the initial impact of Cody Ware’s head-on collision. If NASCAR had seen the footage, the caution would have been thrown immediately, he said.

“If we would have had the shot of Cody’s impact there, the caution would have come out immediately. But it was thrown immediately when he dropped his window net,” Moran said. “We give them the opportunity to pull out, but if we would have had that first shot, we would have known that car wasn’t pulling out. So, that’s on us. We’re going to review it and we’re going to look at it. If we go back to Chicago, we’ll definitely have a different plan.”