NASCAR radio hacked multiple times at Atlanta Motor Speedway, per report

During the NASCAR Cup Series race at Atlanta, there was an issue with the official radio channel being broadcast to teams and fans. While the tower may or may not have heard the chatter, there were many online who heard a few unsavory words from a random fan.

NASCAR radio channels being “hacked” isn’t a new thing. Folks will find a way to get onto team channels, the main NASCAR channel, or whatever radio they feel like.

Last night, people were wondering if they were hearing what they thought they were hearing. As word made its way around social media, it became clear. Someone was messing with NASCAR in Atlanta.

Whoever has a recording of the fan hacking NASCAR radio at the end of the race, show yourself

— NASCAR Incident Counter (@NASCARCounter) February 24, 2025

Brett Winningham of Speedway Digest reported some of the chatter from the radio during the race.

“Do not f*** with Larson. Don’t you f*** with Larson, Elton,” Winningham reported the hacker saying.

“Do not fuck with Larson. Don’t you fuck Larson, Elton”

HOLY SHIT … Someone has hacked the officials radio #NASCAR

— Brett Winningham (@NASCAR_BRETT) February 23, 2025

A fan who was also listening reported what they had heard. It sounds about the same as what Winningham reported.

That was the SECOND time today that that person came across. Earlier they can across and said “Elton don’t fuck this up” but that was was shortly after the start of stage 3 I believe

— Shawn Hale (@shawnhale86) February 23, 2025

While the focus was thankfully on how great the racing was up to the overtime restart, and unfortunately, on the final caution, the radio hacker was another wrinkle in last night. When you think about all of the drama and driver beef and great racing we saw with that last lap controversy – wasn’t it kind of the perfect NASCAR race?

Kyle Busch was threatening to wreck Carson Hocevar and the entire field after Stage 1. By the time everyone was parked up after the race, Hocevar had a line of drivers waiting to speak with him. There was just enough wrecking to keep it interesting. Capping it with a questionable caution is just the cherry on top of the NASCAR experience.

NASCAR race at Atlanta mired by controversial caution

Looking back on Daytona, NASCAR should have never let that race finish under green the way they did. William Byron was going to win that race caution or not. All it did was put NASCAR in a tough position.

By making that call at Daytona, they set an expectation among many fans that racing to the line would be more normal. I think if you compare the two wrecks on the last lap at Daytona and Atlanta, to the naked eye, there isn’t much of a difference in violence or force there.

So, why did one continue while the other ended? Because NASCAR clearly felt that they had gone too far. If it had been 2023 or earlier, then NASCAR could have had time to come up with a more concrete plan around these last lap wrecks. It would have been Daytona, Fontana, Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc. Those tracks are all different and can be officiated differently.

Instead, with back-to-back superspeedways and the Daytona race ending how it did under green, NASCAR was put in a corner at Atlanta. They chose to hit the eject button and go back on the precedent they set a week earlier, and then double down on it in the Xfinity Series race the night before. Of course, they said “our bad” about that call as well.

If NASCAR stuck to their guns and just called the caution at Daytona, this would not be a problem. After that, the solution was to once again swallow the whistle at Atlanta. Instead, we have two weeks of superspeedway racing with two different calls.

Forget block or charge, this is now the subjective call in sports, and consistency is the only way to get that back. Just throw the caution.