NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer has addressed the ending of the Brickyard 400 and the decision to throw the caution after Kyle Larson took the white flag.
Sawyer has no problems with how the race director handled the final sequence of events at the 2.5-mile oval track.
"Now we've had the opportunity of 24-48 hours to digest it, I still go back and think our race director did a really good job in how he managed that," Sawyer said during his Tuesday morning appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
The race-ending incident occurred in double overtime. Chase Elliott made contact with the rear of Preece's No. 41 in Turn 2 and sent it spinning. The car made slight contact with the inside wall before coming to a rest.
Preece, who later revealed he had run out of fuel, started to move away from the scene of the crash. However, he was unable to accomplish this as the field completed the first of the two remaining laps.
Larson took the white flag as the leader and then led the field through Turn 1 and toward Turn 2. NASCAR threw the caution flag and ended the race before the field reached the spot where Preece's car sat idle.
Larson became the winner of the race while Tyler Reddick and Ryan Blaney rounded out the top three.
"Our goal at every event is to finish under green," Sawyer said. "That's what our goal is going into the weekend, but there are circumstances that happen on the last lap at Indy and I'll go back to last year at Pocono, a very similar situation with the same car I might add, the 41.
"Both we're trying to give that car every opportunity to get started, get rolling, and let the race end naturally. As we came off Turn 4 and coming to the start-finish line to the white, it's a two-and-a-half-mile racetrack so you still have a lot of racing that can happen.
"As the cars started to get off in Turn 1, you're starting to get closer to having to make a decision, and that's really our process, that's our mindset. It's the same as it was last year at Pocono -- I believe the 41 had spun in the tunnel turn -- and again, you give the drivers every opportunity to get going but also the guys that are leading, you can't let them race through a situation where you got a car stopped on the racetrack. That was our decision process and how we digest that through that very quick."