Cole's POV
Well, he was able to do it. Zane Smith was able to win a championship straight up, without getting screwed due to a bad officiating call. But i'm still not satisfied. The season ending championship is the best prize in any sport. It's already amazing if you can do it once, but doing it multiple times really shows how talented you are. That's why i'm not satisfied, it's because nobody recognizes him as a 2 time NASCAR champion. NASCAR simply could have avoided all this trouble, if they didn't have that darn yellow line rule.
The only three tracks that use the yellow line rule are Daytona, Talladega, and Atlanta. The way it works, is that drivers are not allowed to pass each other, while below the two lines that separates the apron from the racing surface. They are also not allowed to force another driver below those two lines. There are only two exceptions where passing below the double yellow line is allowed. One of those exceptions is if you are avoiding an accident, the other is if another driver forces you down there. This rule was implemented at Talladega in 2001, and ever since it's inception, several fans have considered it to be the worst rule in NASCAR history. Me personally, I think it's the worst rule in the history of professional sports.
The reason why the rule was put into place, was because there were super speedway races, where drivers would dive bomb down to the apron, and then check up in front of the rest of the field. NASCAR was completely overreacting when implementing this rule. While drivers would occasionally drop down to the apron to make passes, these incidents were very few and far between. It wasn't like drivers were doing it every single lap.
The real problem with this rule, is how bad NASCAR is at officiating it. The rule is you cannot advance your position below the yellow line. Anything below the yellow line is not out of bounds, you just aren't allowed to pass while down there. The biggest screw up that NASCAR made with this part of the rule, has got to be the 2011 Budweiser shootout. Denny Hamlin was stripped of the victory, because NASCAR deemed that he advanced his position below the yellow line. You can clearly see in the replay of the finish, that Hamlin was already ahead of Ryan Newman, before he put all 4 wheels below the yellow line. He did not advance his position, what he did was perfectly legal, and he still got penalized for it.
Then there is also the part of the rule, that states that you are allowed to pass below the line, if you are avoiding a wreck. Here's the problem, 99% of the time you see drivers passing below the line, they are not doing it to get a competitive advantage, they are avoiding a wreck. When NASCAR says that they give leeway for avoiding an accident, they are clearly lying. The biggest example of this, was the 2006 Budweiser shootout, where Carl Edwards advanced his position below the yellow line to avoid a crash, and got a penalty. Edwards refused to tolerate what just happened, and pulled his car behind the wall, refusing to finish the race.
Then there is the part of the rule that says you cannot force another driver below the line. Multiple times, drivers have pushed each other below the line, and no penalties were given out. It's also stated in the rule, that if you pass below the yellow line after being forced down there, the driver that forced you will get the penalty instead. Apparently, this did not apply for the 2008 AMP Energy 500 at Talladega. On the last lap coming through the tri oval, Regan Smith passed Tony Stewart for the race lead and took the checkered flag, after Stewart pushed Smith below the yellow line. By all accounts, Smith should have been able to keep the win, while Stewart should have been scored as the last driver on the lead lap. Instead, Regan Smith gets penalized, and Tony Stewart was given the win. That was an incident where a penalty was 100% warranted, they just gave the penalty to the wrong driver.
I think I have made my point by now. The yellow line rule is dumb, NASCAR makes too many bad calls involving this rule, and they need to get rid of it. What do you think?