NASCAR Through the Gears: Yellow fever strikes, as does Carson Hocevar. Kyle Larson finishes!

It didn’t take long for onlookers to become officially fed up with NASCAR’s Boys in the Booth. Just two weeks.

Let’s review.

Thursday’s Duel at Daytona: Hair-trigger caution on final lap with the finish line almost literally within arm’s reach.

Sunday at the Daytona 500: Massive pile-up on backstretch of final lap, no caution, race back to the stripe.

This past Saturday at Atlanta: Final lap of Xfinity race, huge wreck on backstretch, no caution, race home. Replays showed how nasty of a crash it was, NASCAR said there’d be a quicker caution next time, and whaddaya know …

Sunday at Atlanta: Final lap again, backstretch trouble again, immediate caution as another three-wide battle off Turn 4 is forming. Christopher Bell cruises, relatively speaking, to victory.

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An entertaining weekend of racing at Atlanta, where such things are now common, but it ends on a downer and some folks aren’t happy.

At minimum, there are two reasons you should throw a quick caution in these situations.

1. Particularly with hard hits, you should get safety vehicles on the track ASAP, and you don’t want them wasting potentially precious time waiting for everyone to finish and slow down. Again, watch a replay of Saturday’s Xfinity finish for an example.

2. If a crash happens just past the start/finish line, you shouldn’t race back to the checkers with wrecked cars sitting just beyond.

A combo of checkered and yellow flags assaults the senses of most race fans, so what should they do? Let’s get up to speed and examine a couple of possible fixes, while also checking in on lonesome Carson Hocevar at the playground and Kyle Larson’s clean race car.

First Gear: Hey NASCAR, here’s an idea, or two

As someone around here (care to guess?) has been saying for years and years, races shouldn’t end under caution. Fans invest time and/or money into these things, you know.

Yes, there will be times when it’s seemingly ridiculous to keep trying two-lap overtimes after previous attempts resulted in a wreck or three … or even four.

How about this: After a couple attempts, make it a single-lap overtime. By my math, that cuts in half the amount of time they have to crash.

Or this: Paint a line across the backstretch, halfway between Turns 2 and 3 (they love to paint lines on asphalt, you may have noticed). If the crash happens before the line: Caution. After the line: No caution. The wrecked cars are safely beyond harm’s way as the field keeps chugging to the checkers.

Some smart person could easily punch holes in both of those proposals, but there’s no debating this: Either of the above is better than the current system, which only seems to be a system until it’s systematically ignored down the road.

Second Gear: So, you wanted to meet Carson Hocevar …

You can easily imagine some of the Cup Series stars not even recognizing Carson Hocevar, seeing how he spends so little time among them on Sundays.

“Someone point out the driver of that 77 car, we need to have a talk.”

Introductions were made Sunday, when Hocevar took advantage of Atlanta’s pack-racing rules package to find his way to the leaders and, once there, cuff ’em around here and there. Racing history is thick with tales of young racers who broke some china on their way to high society.

The harder part is dealing with the retribution and verbal daggers and not backing down while, also, honing the edges a bit. For better or worse, the next “plate race” isn’t until late April at Talladega, which will probably be the next time we get to see if Hocevar has adjusted his game plan.

Until then, he left us with an early candidate for post-race quote of the year.

“We’re here to win races, not be a boy band and love each other and play on the playground together.”

He then gathered himself to say, “There’s things I would clean up, for sure.” Good luck finding a partner for the teeter-totter.

Third Gear: Kyle Larson didn’t wreck!

Speaking of breaking things, Kyle Larson tried to continue his streak of Atlanta misery, but when he slid up into Austin Cindric, he only ruined Cindric’s day.

Larson made his Chevy very wide as Cindric attempted a pass for the lead and, in racing terms, “used him up.” But by and large, he gets a pass because he’s Kyle Larson and not Carson Hocevar. That’s racin’.

Larson was part of that potential three-wide dash that wasn’t and came away third, which is big for him at Atlanta. Kyle’s plate-racing record at Daytona and Talladega is bad (two fourths and a sixth in 42 combined starts), but his Atlanta history is even worse.

Before Sunday, in the six races since Atlanta got the restricted-horsepower treatment, Kyle wrecked five times and finished 13th the one time he wheeled it home.

Austin Hill, on the other hand …

Fourth Gear: Atlanta’s king of the Hill

Kyle Busch won his 67th career Truck Series race Friday, to the surprise of NO ONE. In 176 career truck starts, he’s had win streaks of five, six and seven.

But his Friday win wasn’t the only presumed “given” over the weekend. By now, they might as well just mail Austin Hill the winner’s trophy and check.

The 30-year-old Georgian drives the No. 21 Chevy for Richard Childress Racing in the Xfinity Series. At his home track, he’s earned a reserved parking spot in Victory Lane. It’s truly amazing, given all that can go wrong in this form of racing, but Hill has won five of the seven races at Atlanta since 2022 (when the new rules took effect), and in one of the two he didn’t win, he finished second.

Eight of his 11 wins since ’22 have come at Daytona and Atlanta.

For what it’s worth, he’s also solid on road courses, which is enough to get you thinking. A third of the Cup Series schedule — 12 races — is run on road courses and the three plate-race superspeedways.

Shouldn’t Hill at least get a courtesy interview next time there’s an open seat?

— Email Ken Willis at [email protected]

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NASCAR: Atlanta’s sad end, driver becomes weapon, Kyle Larson finishes