NASCAR exec: We will take 'much deeper dive' into controversial damaged vehicle policy

One week after NASCAR's controversial Damaged Vehicle Policy was at the center of water cooler fodder for frustrated fans, it was once more thrust into the limelight at the Talladega Superspeedway.

The confusing policy has a tendency to occasionally take drivable cars out of races, throwing away valuable positions and points, especially in the heat of the championship battle.

After 28 cars were involved in a backstretch melee with four laps to go in Sunday's playoff race at Talladega, the policy came to the forefront, as several playoff drivers found themselves with damaged cars that could still potentially finish the race.

Chase Briscoe — one of 12 drivers still eligible for the Cup Series championship — was explicitly instructed to not let emergency crews take down his window net, which could knock him out of the race. With a red flag in place and confusion abound, nobody knew which cars would be allowed to continue.

As it turned out, both Briscoe and the No. 9 of Chase Elliott would be helped back to the pits, with the Team Penske teammates of Austin Cindric and Joey Logano being forced to retire from the race.

A frustrated Logano — who had a notable run-in with the DVP policy at Pocono in 2023 — spoke to the media after the crash, calling the DVP "comical."

"It's kind of comical," Logano said , discussing the DVP and the new lift system installed on NASCAR's Next-Gen car. "I got out of the car and see a bunch of cars after a red flag where we've been sitting there for 10 minutes, and everyone's just hoping they can roll a little bit. It's just goofy."

The policy was enough of a hot-button issue on Sunday afternoon for NASCAR Senior VP of Competition, Elton Sawyer, to address the media following the race.

"On the heels of last week at Kansas, our goal was never to put good cars out of the race," Sawyer said . "Last week, as we got looking at that and digesting it, maybe we should've made a different call last week. As we went into Talladega, we wanted to make sure we aired on the side of the competitors. We didn't anticipate seeing 25 cars down there, some of them in the grass, high-sided, weren't sure why they couldn't continue. That's why we made the decision to tow the No. 2 to pit road. The No. 9 and No. 14 both met minimum speed, so we felt like that was the right call at that time.

"We will take a much deeper dive into this in the offseason. (The) DVP has been challenging, and we'll go to work on that in the offseason."

Regardless of the changes the sanctioning body makes to the policy in the offseason, there will be plenty of drivers frustrated with how it impacted their playoff runs.