FORT WORTH, Texas – NASCAR officials conceded following Sunday’s O’Reilly Auto Parts 500 that they missed a key penalty call which would have taken Kevin Harvick out of contention for the victory.

Harvick had fought his way back from a slew of miscues during the day at Texas Motor Speedway, including a loose wheel on lap 135 and a penalty for too many crew members going over the wall on a pit stop at lap 237, where a crew member fell over the pit wall trying to corral one of the tires that had just been changed on Harvick’s Ford.

He was running second to leader Kyle Busch when he came down pit road with 44 laps left, where a tire rolled away from the right side of the car and ended up out on pit road before a crew member ran after the tire, grabbed it and brought it back to the pit wall.

Per the NASCAR Rule Book, a tire or wheel is considered controlled when all of the following criteria are met:

• A crew member must remain within arm’s reach and moving in the same direction as the tire when removing it from the outside half of the pit box.
• The tire must never cross the center of pit road.
• The removed tire must not roll free into an adjacent competitor’s pit box.

Below is a look at the pit stop in question:

In GIF form

This was not an uncontrolled tire penalty for Kevin Harvick: pic.twitter.com/AQYp6TV3B1

— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) April 8, 2018

Harvick ultimately finished second to Busch, after a caution with 31 laps left for a crash by Ryan Newman set up a late-race restart, but officials stated later that he should have been tagged for an uncontrolled tire violation and served a pass-through penalty – which at that time would have been under green and likely cost Harvick a lap to the leaders.

“It was a judgment call, and after conducting a post-race review of the incident, an uncontrolled tire penalty for the (No.) 4 car would have been correct,” said NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller. “We missed that call.”

Ryan Blaney was hit with an uncontrolled tire penalty for almost the exact same scenario on a pit stop at lap 43, when the right-front tire that came off his car rolled away from a crew member by more than an arm’s length.

Harvick, however, was able to avoid such drama and took another solid finish home on Sunday, despite blasting NASCAR after the race for what he called a “pathetic day” on pit road due to issues with NASCAR’s new-for-2018 universal Paoli air guns.

“It was a frustrating two days,” said Harvick “We had a pathetic two days on pit road because we can’t get pit guns that work in our pit stalls. Today we had to pit under green and got ourselves a lap down because the pit guns either work half the time or don’t work half the time. Yesterday we had four loose wheels because the pit guns can’t get the (lug nuts) tight.

“Our guys did a great job with a really fast race car. I feel bad for the guys on pit road because they get handed just absolutely inconsistent pieces of equipment. Today it wound up costing us a race. We’ve had four or five issues with the pit guns this year … but it’s unfortunate that we have to use a piece of equipment that is handed to us, and that dictates your day.”

NASCAR President Brent Dewar engaged a fan on Sunday night who was critical of NASCAR’s no-call, inviting the fan to “come visit race control some time. You would change your tune.”

Dewar later expounded on his thoughts regarding the missed call and offered words of support and encouragement to the officiating team.

“Despite all the (available) technology, we will miss a call every once and a while,” Dewar wrote in a later Tweet. “(I’m) proud of the team to admit it. We strive for perfection every day.”