RELATED: Kahne prevails at Indy | Race results

SPEEDWAY, Ind. – NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer Steve O’Donnell defended the sanctioning body’s timing behind a race-ending caution flag Sunday that concluded the Brantley Gilbert Big Machine Records Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series race, scheduled for 160 laps, was red-flagged three times – once for weather and twice for accidents that required extensive clean-up. The delays resulted in the race lasting more than six hours and ending as darkness was falling on the legendary 2.5-mile track.

But it was the final caution that officially brought an end to the race, with some wondering if officials delayed throwing the yellow flag until race leader and eventual winner Kasey Kahne had crossed the overtime line, signifying the end of the event.

Not so, O’Donnell explained.

“What we have always said and we have always been consistent … is we’re going to make every attempt to finish the race under green and to do that you have to see what happens with an incident,” O’Donnell said. “In this case, we did that. Once we decided to throw the caution when we wanted to dispatch emergency equipment we also knew that there was oil on the race track; we threw the caution and ultimately that’s the end of the race.”

Kahne had taken the lead from Brad Keselowski on the Lap 166 restart and was leading the field down the backstretch when Denny Hamlin was hit, spun and hit the wall. Paul Menard and Ty Dillon were also involved.

O’Donnell said the impending darkness did not play a role into the timing of the decision.

“It didn’t,” he said, “but we would not have been able to restart that race. There was oil down, it would have been another red flag. The last couple of red flags were 15-20 minutes with oil so we were up against it as well.”

Although it was becoming dark as officials cleaned up after an eight-car incident on the first attempt to finish the race in overtime, O’Donnell said it was still light enough to see clearly. And drivers such as third-place finisher Ryan Newman said afterward that darkness wasn’t an issue.

O’Donnell says as part of the normal post-race procedure, officials will evaluate what happened throughout the course of the entire weekend. But he doesn’t anticipate any changes in the overtime line as it currently stands.

“We’ve talked about the potential to move it to the start/finish line in 2018 but we’ve been very clear on the rules,” he said. “Once the leader crosses the overtime line and the caution comes out, the race is over.”