Las Vegas NASCAR Fight Under Review

No Las Vegas fight penalties are expected to be issued by NASCAR

Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer talked about possible Las Vegas fight penalties this morning.

The NASCAR executive stated officials were continuing to review the Kyle Busch v. Joey Logano fight video. However, about the tempers flared at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, the sanctioning body is inclined “not to react” pending further tape review.

Kyle Busch vs Joey Logano Fight at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
(Photo by Sean Gardner/Getty Images)

O’Donnell’s remarks came Monday morning in a guest appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s “Morning Drive” program.

“It’s certainly under review,” O’Donnell said.

He continued, “We have to take everything, make sure we look at all the video, but just from our in assessment last night, as far as on-track I don’t think we saw anything that was intentional by any means. We have to have discussions with both drivers. I think our intention would be not to react unless we see something we haven’t seen yet.”

Kyle Busch body slammed Joey Logano on corner entry. Joey Logano drove up the track, with an out of control machine ‘mostly’ due to corner entry contact. That resulted in contact with Kyle on corner exit. That’s what caused the whole pit road incident.

Joey Logano has a case that the corner exit contact was unintentional, a small one. A brake pedal could have avoided that contact. But at the same time, it’s the last lap, so what brake pedal? Joey Logano stated on twitter, “We about crashed and I was trying to save it. Nothing intentional on my end. Had another fast Ford all day. Proud of this 22 team.”

Immediately after the pit road incident. The Team Penske crew requested a meeting with NASCAR. In cases like this, it’s usually NASCAR calling teams to the hauler.

“It’s an emotional sport,” O’Donnell added, “and I think it shows exactly how much every position on the track means.”

NASCAR CEO Brian France says, “You gotta expect that.” He explained the amount of pressure on these drivers who compete at the highest level of stock car racing. So, he isn’t surprised when emotions run high and things boil over.

“What our position has been is that we want to leave it in the drivers’ hands,” O’Donnell said. Continuing on that point, “What we don’t want to see — and the drivers have asked for this, which is very fair — is a crew member initially approaching a driver or initiating some type of altercation with a driver. The early review of this is, this was two drivers with crew members kind of stepping back. Once something happens, a crew is taught, which I think is right, that if someone comes up in your pit box and attacks your guy, you have the right to try and break that up or bring it to a stop. I think that was the initial review that we saw.”

 

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