DALLAS – Give NASCAR officials credit for actually admitting they made one mistake. That alone is equal to some sort of cosmic realignment of the stars. But admitting a mistake and correcting the problem are two entirely different things.

NASCAR officials made a couple of mistakes at Texas Motor Speedway last weekend – only one of which they acknowledged – but the sanctioning body has no intentions of doing anything to correct those errors.

The real problem is that NASCAR is treating the symptoms instead of opting to cure the illness.

NASCAR president Mike Helton said Tuesday that NASCAR blew it by not positioning Jeff Gordon as the race leader at a caution midway through the Samsung/RadioShack 500 on Sunday at Texas Motor Speedway.

Gordon passed leader Matt Kenseth before they reached the start-finish line because Gordon wanted to keep two drivers from getting back on the lead lap.

NASCAR ruled Gordon didn’t have the right to keep those cars a lap down, so Kenseth was placed back in front, and the other two cars got their lap back.

Helton admitted that ruling was wrong, but these arguments are a matter of semantics. If NASCAR would do the right thing and stop racing back to the yellow flag, no one would have to debate these points.

NASCAR has made enormous strides in safety since Dale Earnhardt’s death two years ago, but it’s still in the dark ages when it comes to racing back around the track when a caution is displayed.

It’s dangerous, and it forces the driver in the lead to make a decision about giving drivers behind him a chance to pass him to get back on the lead lap. So why doesn’t NASCAR change it?

“It’s not possible for NASCAR, when a caution comes out, to be sure every spot out there,” Helton said.

With all due respect Mr. Helton, that is baloney. If NASCAR tried to freeze the field by position at the moment of the caution, it would be difficult to set the grid. The answer is to revert back to the previous green-flag lap and place each car in the position it held with timing and scoring on that lap.

What we have now is the leader feeling obligated to let his teammates get a lap back. So the leader slows down while cars behind him are speeding up. Try that sometime on I-35 and see what happens.

The danger and the decisions could be averted if NASCAR stopped racing back to the line on a caution.

Now for problem No. 2 at TMS last weekend. Brian Vickers was leading the O’Reilly 300 Busch Series race when he was black-flagged for starting to pass on a restart.

Driver Chad Blount, who was in front of Vickers on the tail end of the lead lap, fishtailed at the restart. Vickers moved down to the left to avoid hitting Blount. When they reached the line, Vickers’ car was only up to Blount’s rear wheel, but NASCAR ruled Vickers “had the intent to make a pass.”

Wrong. Vickers had the intent of not wrecking. Had he checked up, he could have started a chain reaction behind him.

Once again, arguing his intent and debating the issue over the pass is missing the point. Don’t treat the symptoms, cure the illness.

None of this would have happened if slower cars hadn’t been in front of the leader.

Depending on who pits and who doesn’t, NASCAR allows drivers on the tail end of the lead lap to line up in front of the leader on a restart.

The leader always should start in front. Make those cars at the end of the lead lap go back around to the end of the line, as is the case in the IRL.

Is it an advantage to cars about to get lapped? Yes. But it’s a bigger disadvantage to the leader, not to mention dangerous, to have those cars starting in front of him.

The driver leading the race has earned the right to start in front. Had this been the case last weekend, the injustice against Vickers never would have happened.

The solution to these problems is available, but NASCAR keeps treating the symptoms and letting the illness continue.