AVONDALE, Ariz. — Saying that NASCAR was “pissed” by what teams did in the final laps last weekend at Martinsville Speedway, a senior NASCAR official said manufacturers were given a warning this week and the drivers will receive that same message Saturday at Phoenix Raceway, a day ahead of the championship race.
NASCAR suspended nine people and issued $600,000 in fines to those with 23XI Racing, Richard Childress Racing and Trackhouse Racing for the actions of Bubba Wallace, Austin Dillon and Ross Chastain in the waning laps at Martinsville.
Dillon and Chastain ran behind fellow Chevrolet driver William Byron and effectively blocked others from getting by Byron, who could not afford to lose any more positions to advance to the Championship 4.
Wallace slowed significantly on the final lap, allowing fellow Toyota driver Christopher Bell to pass him and seemingly advance to the Championship 4 before NASCAR penalized Bell for riding along the wall on the final lap.
“What I saw in Martinsville pissed me off and it pissed everyone off at NASCAR because we all know better,” said NASCAR Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell during a media session Friday with NASCAR President Steve Phelps.
“We know what happened. So we do have rules in the rule book where we can address it and we did. We had a call with our OEMs (on Wednesday) where we were very clear in what our intentions are going forward.
“Do we have a rule right now where we could do something (to penalize manufacturers)? We don’t. Will we have a rule next year? 1,000%. They’re aware of that. They’re aware that if anything happens this weekend, which it won’t, we will react.”
NASCAR is scheduled to meet with Cup drivers at 3 p.m. ET Saturday.
“The reason we chose not to penalize the drivers (other than a $100,000 fine and 50 points to Wallace, Dillon and Chastain) … we made the decision that the drivers are holding the wheel but the drivers were told essentially what to do,” O’Donnell said. “We gave them the benefit of the doubt.
“Saturday’s message … to the drivers will be that’s your warning. We know what happened. Going forward we’ll have to penalize you as well. But what do our words mean? We’re not going to let people, drivers, teams, anyone OEMs, challenge the integrity of the sport.”
During an interview Friday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, David Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development said: “We urge our teams to work together. We ask them to be respectful of each other. But we do not communicate in the course of any race. We do not make demands of our drivers or teams. We do not threaten.”
Wilson acknowledged that what happened at Martinsville “wasn’t a good look for our sport. It just wasn’t. We, and our colleagues at Ford and Chevrolet had a discussion with NASCAR earlier this week and they were very clear to message how unhappy they were about it and they asked us to help them. We said we would, and we are going to help them.”
A point that has been made since Martinsville is why were there penalties to teams this week for helping cars of the same manufacturer when that type of racing is prevalent at Daytona and Talladega.
“I think we all are smart enough to see what may happen from (a manufacturer) at Talladega with teams drafting together versus what occurred at Martinsville,” O’Donnell said. “Are there some things we need to look at in terms of how things are communicated, what can be communicated between team alliances or (manufacturers) in general during a race? Absolutely. We’ll continue to address those.”
