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BRISTOL, Tenn. — NASCAR’s errant call against Kyle Busch was still being discussed Saturday, as drivers wondered what kind of recourse they have when they don’t agree with a call.

NASCAR said Busch crossed the commitment line for pit road — and then didn’t pit — during a caution in Friday night’s Busch Series race. He was ordered to forfeit his second-place position, and even though his Hendrick Motorsports team disagreed with the call, Busch served the penalty and dropped back to 28th.

Shortly after the race resumed, NASCAR said Busch did not cross the line and should not have been penalized. It was too late to rectify, though, and Busch had to drive through the field to finish fourth.

“It was a terrible mistake,” said team owner Rick Hendrick, who met Saturday with NASCAR president Mike Helton at Bristol Motor Speedway.

“You hate to have (NASCAR) make a mistake like that.”

During the driver meeting before Saturday night’s Nextel Cup event, four-time series champion Jeff Gordon asked NASCAR what teams should do going forward if they disagree with a call. Race director David Hoots said the teams should convey their thoughts to a NASCAR official, who will radio it to the scoring tower for further review.

But Hendrick said he had a better solution.

“I’m going to run out on the track and stand on the line until they stop the race and run over me, or handcuff me and take me away,” he said.

Meanwhile, NASCAR was defending how the error happened.

Robin Pemberton, vice president of competition, said the pit road official initially called the violation. When the team complained, NASCAR asked the official to reconfirm and the official again said Busch was in violation.

But when NASCAR attempted to watch a replay of the incident, their feed had failed and there was no immediate video to view. Believing the ruling was correct, the race restarted.

Many wondered why NASCAR didn’t wait until it had a video replay to resume the race. NASCAR officials got the feed a few minutes later and recognized their error.

“We don’t rule the sport by video, we use it to confirm different situations,” Pemberton said. “When we can’t find video to review, we rule by our officials and we had no reason to dispute our own call.

“We’re human and we’re no different from most other sports. Football has end zone calls, sideline calls, and baseball has balls and strikes. Pick any sport. Just because they’ve got a strike zone superimposed on a camera, you can’t regulate your balls and strikes like that. It’s still an umpire or referee making split-second calls.”

That was little consolation to crew chief Alan Gustafson, who said he wants a camera positioned at the pit road commitment line to prevent similar incidents going forward.

“These races are hard to win, and who knows? I may never again have a chance to be the winning crew chief for a Busch race at Bristol,” Gustafson said. “It just seems like in this day and age, we could have the technology, a camera, that would prevent that from happening.”

Pemberton said NASCAR was adjusting its officials for Saturday night’s race to strengthen the presence at pit road entrances.

Hendrick said that going forward, he hopes NASCAR takes steps to ensure it always has video before issuing a ruling that alters the outcome of an event.

“I’d like to see for everybody’s benefit, especially going into the Chase, for them to take the time, run a few more caution laps and try to make sure that they are right,” Hendrick said. “I think they will try to do that.”

Villenueve-Toyota

Toyota officials said they did not help broker the deal that brought former Formula One world champion Jacques Villeneuve to NASCAR, but are thrilled he’s signed with one of their teams.

Villeneuve will test a Toyota Tundra truck for Bill Davis Racing next week in Chicago, the first step in what is expected to lead to a full Nextel Cup schedule in 2008.

“This is not something Toyota has brought about, precipitated or really even had anything to do with other than reading the same press release,” said Lee White, senior vice president of Toyota Racing Development. “But It’s great for NASCAR. It’s great for Toyota. It’s great for Bill Davis.”

Villeneuve is expected to race the final seven Truck races of this season, and the ARCA event at Talladega Superspeedway in October. Davis said he plans to enter him in a full Cup schedule next season, but wasn’t sure what car Villeneuve would drive or who the sponsor would be.

But White said Toyota supports the schedule BDR has established, especially since it seemingly has worked in Juan Pablo Montoya’s transition with Chip Ganassi Racing. Montoya ran a handful of ARCA and Busch Series events last season to prepare for Cup this year.

“If you look how at Chip brought Juan Montoya into NASCAR-style racing, he set the mark. He did it right,” White said. “These guys aren’t stupid. They have good advisors. Hopefully, someone talked to (Villeneuve) or demonstrated to him, ‘Don’t do this and set yourself up to fail.’

“It’s not good for Canada. It’s not good for Jacques Villeneuve. It’s not good for the sponsors coming along. The way to success is to start in ARCA and learn how to do this and go win some races.”

Bristol rocks

Drivers have been unanimous in their rave reviews of the repaving at Bristol Motor Speedway, and Dale Jarrett used the pre-race driver meeting to thank the track for the job it did.

Work began on the .533-mile bullring immediately after the March race here, as track officials smoothed out the surface with new concrete. A variable banking was added, and an additional three feet of track surface was put in the corners. The transition in and out of turns 2 and 4 was also smoothed.

Jarrett told general manager Jeff Byrd he appreciated track officials consulting with the drivers about adjustment before beginning the project.

A NASCAR official then joked that Byrd should turn his focus toward fixing the air conditioning at the facility.

Temperatures have hovered around 100 degrees all weekend here, creating brutal conditions inside the race cars. Matt Kenseth admitted the heat was making him crabby.

But former Formula One driver Juan Pablo Montoya said the heat wasn’t that bad.

“It’s hot, but this isn’t even close to Malaysia,” he said of the F1 venue. “It was about 110 degrees there all the time, and it was so hot, you couldn’t even breathe. It was really just awful.”

Conway passes

Sam Conway, a former team manager for Darrell Waltrip, died early Saturday at age 58 after a battle with lung cancer.

Conway worked for Waltrip during the 1990s, and spent 10 years on the board of directors for Motor Racing Outreach. His son, Kevin, currently races in the Busch Series for Joe Gibbs Racing.

“Dad was a huge supporter of racing and loved everything about the sport,” Kevin said. “He was also my biggest supporter, and just as dedicated as he was to racing, he was equally dedicated to his family. As hard as it is to not have him around coming with me to the race track, it feels good knowing that he got to see me race and realize a dream that both of us shared.

“I’ll always think of him every time I go to the track because we spent so much time together there.”