Huffman: “What the hell is the caution rule in the CARS Tour?”

Landon Huffman has questions for the CARS Tour officials regarding the caution rule after Saturday’s race at Langley.

“What the hell is the caution rule in the CARS Tour?” Huffman asked on his podcast, Huffman Racing Radio on Monday. 

In case you missed it, with 57 laps to go, Huffman’s teammate Conner Jones came across his front bumper while they were battling for position into turn three, sending Jones spinning. CARS Tour officials sent Huffman to the tail of the lead lap because of the incident.

“This is what’s so aggravating,” Huffman said. “We need to have a long conversation about this. Anybody watching that, in my opinion, would say that that is not my fault. It is not something you can predict. He just turned left. He admitted he turned left; that he didn’t acknowledge the fact that I was there. The announcers said ‘Oh my God I can’t believe he just turned left on him.’ They sent me to the rear for that. I was all the way back up to 13th after going back to 28th.

“Danny Willard, who is the race director now, which I’m assuming he makes all the calls at this point because of what happened at Wake [County], he made the call,” Huffman said. “Now I asked him after, ‘What’s the rule? Is it a judgement [call]?’ and he’s like ‘Well, you were involved in the caution.’ I said ‘So is it an involved in the caution rule?’ He was like ‘Well it looked like [Jones] chopped you but from our angle it’s hard to tell.’ The rule, supposably, now is a judgement call.”

The 2026 CARS Tour rule book says the following:

4.10.3.5. All cars involved in the incident will be placed into the lineup at the tail of his/her respective lap

4.10.3.8. Any Driver or Member who, in the judgement of Race Control, causes or attempts to cause a caution shall be assessed a penalty of three (3) or more Green Flag laps upon a return to racing.

Huffman was left more confused after an incident near the end of the race when he spun in turn two.

“Then, later in the race, after I was sent to the back, I was passing [Parker] Eatmon for 12th,” Huffman said. “We get down into the corner, and I feel what happened is Brandon Pierce got into my left rear. Everyone else says that that was watching it. It bounced me sideways, and you can see that on my GoPro but I don’t have any video of it. When it bounced me, my right rear tire hit Eatmon.”

“So I got knocked, hit Eatmon. He saved it, it jerked me all the way around and [Pierce] was all the way into my bumper at that point. Brandon says he didn’t touch me until after I was spinning. There’s other people who say otherwise. At that point it didn’t really matter. I had crashed three more times and didn’t really give a shit.”

“They did not send [Pierce] to the back. You want to know why? ‘We just didn’t get a good look.’ The last two times I got spun, the Flo broadcast didn’t show it. What’s frustrating to me is I don’t think anybody knows the rule. I think that some of them think it’s involved.”

Huffman said that during his conversation with Willard that it was said it is based on if you caused the caution.

“I talked to Danny after this,” Huffman said. “He said that he ‘is not saying involved, he is saying the cause. So I was the cause of the caution because i made contact with him.’ I said ‘Okay, if that’s how it’s deemed, what happens if I’m a lap down and Landen Lewis or whoever is leading the race and they’re lapping me and I’m pissed off and I hook a left and he turns me?’

“Well by precedent, his ass is going to the back. At that point you’re not making a judgment call because technically it’s the cause of the caution.”

Huffman also says he wants a change to the rule to make it clearer and fairer.

“I feel that they have to reconfigure what’s going on here,” Huffman said. “I’m tired of getting fucked by the rule. I feel like I got turned around a lot in this race. I think you have to make a judgement call. And there’s people relaying to them what happens in wrecks. One of the main issues is we don’t have enough cameras on what’s happening.

“I think that they put me to the back not because it was my fault but because I was involved but now they’re spun out on the rule. I think that they’re backtracking because they don’t know what the rule is. My answer to it would be you have to have someone that’s willing to make the call and if it is a racing incident or you’re on the fence about it, then you just have to say it’s a racing incident. It is the true cause of the caution.”

As far as a “tap rule’ like Conner Jones suggested after Wake County, Huffman doesn’t like the idea.

“I don’t think there needs to a tap rule, because I don’t think it would be honored. I don’t think you should keep your spot if you get wrecked. I think that’s racing. I think shit happens.” 

To view Huffman’s full comments on his podcast, click here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-X3Dgufxyg&t=3046s