Caution was called for Hailie Deegan after her Mustang got loose on the outside lane and made contact with the barriers of the Phoenix Raceway with 64 laps to go in the Phoenix Xfinity Series race. There was no damage, and Deegan masterfully maneuvered her car, regaining total control. But the officials called a “ghost caution” on the #15 car. What followed next was disastrous for Deegan. After the restart, a late-stage ‘big one’ triggered by race-winners Chandler Smith and John Hunter Nemechek sent her, as well as several other drivers, back to the garage under the scorching Arizona sun.

Many attributed Chandler Smith’s one-sided JGR victory as the result of the disruptions thrown by this ‘ghost caution’ in the face of a tightly contested event. This included the cast of the Dirty Mo Media Network podcast, Door Bumper Clear, Freddie Kraft, Brett Griffin, and Deegan’s spotter in the Truck Series, TJ Majors.

Hailie Deegan’s Caution Ruined Phoenix NXS

In their segment, “Spot on, Spot off,” the spotters discussed Deegan’s disruptive caution as well as the consequent order of events that took place right after. It was Bubba Wallace’s #23 team spotter, Kraft, who started with, “You could tell they knew they did something wrong because it was a very strange caution call, to begin with.”

When talking about the #15 car and the unnecessary caution, he said, “Maybe they just panicked, you know, like they saw Hailie, but Hailie wasn’t even sideways. I’ve seen times before where people get sideways and save it; little smoke comes off the tires.” Deegan’s caution was not at all detrimental to the field at the time; as Kraft observed, “She was just kind of running the high lane and got a little out of shape, and the yellow came out.” 

“And then the problem with that is you reset the field and then we wreck the whole f*cking field on the next restart.” The #23 spotter concluded to resonate with fan sentiments on the somewhat dismal Phoenix Xfinity race.

The rest of the room concurred as Brett Griffin laid out his own sentiments: “It was a very unfortunate situation. Chandler Smith checked out. The race is playing out organically. They throw this BS caution and like Freddie said it completely changes everything.” However, what Justin Haley’s full-time Cup Series spotter said next was interesting, to say the least.

Bubba Wallace’s Spotter’s View on the Phoenix race

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The South Carolina native offered a solution to problems pertaining to controversial caution calls, stating, “So I’m telling you guys the problem that I have with this is we shouldn’t have thrown the caution. We have to decide we need the same person throwing the caution every week in every single Series so that we know there’s consistency.”

On the contrary, Hailie Deegan’s spotter, TJ Majors, did not have a lot to say. But Kraft did provide his own anecdote on how the caution played out for him personally on race day. He said, “We can hear the second somebody Keys up the microphone. Even if they’re not talking you can hear a button get keyed up and you can hear it…” 

Hailie Deegan Fails to Make an Impact Yet Again After Her Struggles Continue in Phoenix

Kraft went on to explain, “So there was like a key up and I don’t know if it was a corner guy maybe that I  heard say something quick. The next thing you know the yellow’s out…Then we finally see a replay and how I knew that they screwed up or that they knew they screwed up was radio silence after the yellow,” he concluded, setting the stage for more discussions following this ghost caution.

What caused the ghost caution is still under debate, but NASCAR must ensure that things like this don’t happen again. The NXS is a proving ground for many upcoming racers, and to have faulty caution calls disrupt their run to the premiere stage—the Cup Series—is heartbreaking. Developments on the issue await as Hailie Deegan looks to turn her fortunes sideways for the Focused Health 250 NXS race at COTA on March 25th.