“This is us pretty much helping Zane Smith figure it out”
After the race at Phoenix Raceway, Zane Smith stayed in the gas and caught up to the bumper of Carson Hocevar as the cars were coming to the pit lane. He drove right into the bumper of Hocevar at over 100mph.
Video of Smith crashing into Hocevar at Phoenix
The post-race contact was retaliation for an incident earlier in the race. Yet, in that situation, Hocevar was shoved into the corner by Ross Chastain.
Smith was not made aware of the reason for the contact until after the retaliation. However, once he was made aware of what caused he told the team that he didn’t care.
This post-race incident comes post-NASCAR-warning. NASCAR already called Hocevar and Smith into the hauler after a prior incident during the race at Chicagoland Speedway.
On Tuesday, NASCAR dropped the hammer. They issued a $50,000 fine to Zane Smith.
NASCAR’s Mike Forde comments on the penalty
“But I think, number one reason we penalized here is because we had a discussion with Zane Smith and Carson Hocevar; this happened after Chicagoland, after they had their dust-up on the racetrack. We called both of them in Atlanta,” Forde said via Hauler Talk.
“And pretty much the message was this: If you guys can’t figure it out, we will help you figure it out. And they couldn’t figure it out. This is us pretty much helping Zane Smith figure it out a little bit in the form of a $50,000 fine.”
“When we have drivers called into the hauler like that, we don’t have it often, but when we feel like it’s necessary, we’re serious about those conversations.”
“We want aggression, we want passion. But this one was a little bit different than that, in our opinion, largely because of the conversation we had and the ask that we had that we felt was largely ignored.”
Michael McDowell comments on the penalty to Zane Smith
