NASCAR: Series takes responsibility for convoluted All-Star Race

The Sprint All-Star Race turned into a convoluted mess on Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway and NASCAR Vice President of Competition Scott Miller quickly shouldered the blame for everything that went wrong.

Despite a dramatic finish that saw Joey Logano overtake Kyle Larson with seven laps to go in the final segment, it wasn't enough to make up for a bulk of the event marred by confusion, strategical indecision and questionable officiating by the sanctioning body.

The shenanigans began when Matt Kenseth (left) was penalized a lap at the end of the first segment for failing to adhere to the rule that required every team to make at least one green flag pit stop before lap 50. Kenseth was about to pit on lap 47 when Jamie McMurray crashed to end the segment before that stop could take place.

This illegally gave Kenseth the lead at the end of the first segment, trapping several drivers a lap down, when they were unable to use the waive-around to get back on the lead lap. One of those drivers was Tony Stewart, who had nothing but criticism for the format and NASCAR's handling of the situation.

"I'm as baffled as everybody," Stewart said his involvement in a second segment crash (top). "I don't know how in the hell we were scored a lap down ... it's the most screwed up All-Star Race I've ever been a part of and I'm glad this is my last one."

Kenseth was puzzled too.

"I've never been this confused in a racecar in my entire life," Kenseth said. "I hope everybody watching understands, because I have no idea what happened ever since the first car pitted."

Miller conceded that NASCAR didn't think the rules totally through. The format was initially crafted by Brad Keselowski and approved for use several weeks ago.

Miller said he was surprised that Kenseth waited so late to pit, because teams were urged not to wait until the last possible moment, and he admitted that NASCAR didn't have a regulated way to sort the issue out.

"We ran into a situation where our race procedures didn't give us the opportunity for a waive-around," Miller told a group of reporters outside of the NASCAR hauler after the race. "It created a lot of confusion and if we continue with this format, we'll have to look at it.

"You know that certain things will happen in a race like this, and you have to be prepared for them, and we weren't so that's basically where we were."

Miller said he wasn't sure what the scoring tower could have done differently because they were adhering to the NASCAR rule book.

"Hindsight is really easy, but we really didn't have a mechanism to do in our race procedures," Miller concluded.

For his part, Keselowski believes his format wasn't that confusing, and that it worked as he designed – easy for him to say after finishing second to Penske teammate Logano.

"There was a next-to-last lap pass for the lead," he said. "There were several passes for the lead. The last four All-Star Races there hasn't been a pass for the lead in the last 20 or 30 laps. I think our fans deserved a better format and they got that today."