NASCAR determined its penalties for the manipulation at the end of Sunday’s race at Martinsville Speedway based on the last time it occurred, but it wanted to go further. And the series vowed to continue to ramp up its punishment if things don’t change.
Nine individuals from three teams were suspended on Tuesday. The crew chiefs and drivers were fined a total of $600,000, and points were docked. NASCAR was reacting to William Byron and Christopher Bell, who were helping their manufacturer teammates advance into the Championship 4.
The most recent race manipulation penalty was for Stewart-Haas Racing’s No. 41 team for helping teammate Chase Briscoe at the Charlotte Roval. The penalties were points, fines, and suspensions, as NASCAR did this time around for Richard Childress Racing, Trackhouse Racing, and 23XI Racing.
“We felt like we wanted to ramp this one up, and we did,” Elton Sawyer, NASCAR senior vice president of competition, said. “We did that in a way that we included team leadership in this one. It’s something we feel like we want to get our point across that it’s a responsibility of all of us – the team owners, the team leadership, as well as ourselves here at NASCAR – to uphold the integrity of our sport and our racing, to make sure that when our fans show up on a given day and watch a race, they’re seeing the best competition possible, and there’s nothing that’s in there manipulating that.
“We do feel like this is the right path at this time. We will make sure going forward if we need to, we will ramp it up again. We will include drivers. We will include OEMs going forward if we need to. We will get this point across.”