One of the most confusing things to explain to new fans of NASCAR, and even some old ones don't completely understand, is a driver on the Monster Energy Cup Series having an "encumbered" win, one that shows up on his stat page in the record books, but in others ways doesn't count at all.

In my opinion, NASCAR has got to do away with this and take the checkered flag away and give it to the first person running legal to cross the start-finish line.  In light of the latest "encumbered" win that went to Denny Hamlin, former driver and NBC commentator Jeff Burton agrees. "Any team that wins and did it illegally didn't win the race. Every short track in the country takes wins away, but we can't do it here."  

"The argument has always been when the fans leave the race track they deserve to know who won the race. Does anybody think Denny Hamlin won the race (Darlington)? They took five bonus points from a team that could have won that race. Kyle Busch, had he passed tech, would have gotten five bonus that could have helped him all the way to Homestead.  With NASCAR taking those five points away and nobody getting them to me that's not right.  Somebody should be the race winner and somebody should get the rewards for winning the race."

His cohort at NBC and past Cup champion Dale Jarrett believes NASCAR should have a post-race process in place that would do away with "encumbered" wins.  "Take the car immediately before it even goes to victory lane," he explained. "And figure out a way if it passes this inspection that's the winner of the race. But it has to be something done in five to 10 minutes and then we can have our victory lane celebration." 

"Then, if they take the cars back and find something's wrong then there's a huge financial penalty. I'm talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars to put a stop to this."

In the wake of what happened at Darlington, which was the same issue Joey Logano was busted for in May at Richmond, NASCAR has decided to move in the direction of being more of a pain in the wallet. The next time a team is caught monkeying around with the rear suspension it will cost them $75,000 instead of $50K.  In addition, the crew chief will get a three-week involuntary vacation instead of two, and the 25 point penalty will be increased to 40.

If NASCAR, however, decides down the road a driver, whose car was found not to be in compliance with the rulebook,  will have the victory will be taken away even Denny Hamlin can live with that. "I think we can talk about taking wins away in the future.  I think it's definitely a possibility as long as it's the same for everyone, I think that's key.  Make sure that when someone else is in there with the same violation, it gets the same penalty and treatment, even if it's in the playoffs."

I couldn't agree more so for 2019 let's unencumber ourselves from "encumbered" wins.