DARLINGTON, S.C. — The number 50,000 has been in the news on more than one occasion within the NASCAR world in the last week.
It’s the number of dollars drivers have paid for getting involved in a physical altercation with another driver. On Sunday, March 15, it almost happened between former teammates Daniel Suarez and Ross Chastain after the two got into it at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
But Suarez, heated as he was, hesitated for the altercation to get physical, saying he didn’t want to get fined.
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“I was getting fired up to fight, but what was I going to gain?” Suarez said on his personal YouTube vlog. “To punch him and put him on the ground, it was going to cost me $50,000.”
On Friday, March 20, at Darlington Raceway, Ben Rhodes was caught in an early race incident with fellow NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series driver Tyler Ankrum that ended Rhodes’ night. The driver of the No. 99 Ford was less than pleased with Ankrum.
Despite that, Rhodes restrained himself, citing the potential fine.
“I would love to go get myself a penalty and fight right now,” Rhodes said outside of the care center. “But I heard that’s $75,000, so we won’t be doing that.”
In a sport that was debatably made based on its fighting between drivers, many wonder if the rule for fighting should be altered or be done away with as a whole. At Darlington, multiple NASCAR alumni, including 2000 NASCAR Cup Series champion Bobby Labonte, weighed in on the debate.
“I think they go back and forth on that,” Labonte said. “You shouldn’t promote it, you know, per se, but I do think that there’s a line in everything, and I think everyone’s probably a little bit different. But I mean you can’t just promote fighting, but how do you penalize it if it’s not really fighting? I mean, I could hit you upside the face, and is that fighting? No, it’s just to straighten you out, you know? I don’t know how you define it.”
Inaugural NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series champion Mike Skinner agreed with his fellow alumni.
“It’s exciting, and you don’t want the sport to get vanilla,” Skinner said. “NASCAR has got to, deep down inside, like when this happens, but they can’t endorse it. They can’t say it’s OK because it’s not, and it’s really, really good to see passion back in the sport. When somebody gets in a fight over a race or somebody’s wrecking them or whatever, they’re showing passion, and that’s what we got to keep in the sport.
“I said this one time about Kyle Busch. Somebody was complaining about Kyle Busch being such a sore loser, and I said, ‘You show me somebody that’s OK with losing, I’m going to show you somebody who doesn’t win very much.”
As Skinner alluded, Busch has had his fair share of physical altercations in his career. Unsurprisingly, he had a mostly different opinion from his alumni predecessors.
“Yeah, I’ve had a few skirmishes, and I don’t remember the penalties of those,” Busch said in the Darlington media center. “The [Joey] Logano thing in 2017, like there were no penalties that came out of that one.
“[Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and I] was premeditated. That was because he waited. Heat of the moment after the race, just getting out of your car, going up to somebody, I think you get free reign.”
Brad Keselowski, a veteran and champion of the Cup Series, believed there should be at least some limit to fighting. The RFK Racing co-owner argues that less guidelines will invoke too many altercations.
“I love the idea of, you know, racing and being able to show the emotion and angst,” Keselowski said. “Then I also think it looks really unprofessional if there’s a brawl every week, right? I like hockey, and every once in a while, they have fights and things like that and everybody cheers for it, but if every game had a fight, you’re kind of like, eh.”
Then, he proposed an interesting rule.
“I guess my personal opinion on this is if something happens on the track and it’s in the top five, top 10 and you’re going to fight for it, OK, that seems pretty reasonable. If it happens like for 25th, those guys should not be allowed to fight. That’s a waste of time. It’s not interesting. It just makes everybody look bad.”
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Bubba Wallace, who has been on the receiving end of fight-induced suspensions, had his own belief about having the ability to stand up for oneself.
“I blame my dad, but I also respect how he was,” Wallace told Frontstretch. “He was an eye for an eye. When you’re disrespected, it’s a fine line of being a better person or making sure they don’t do that again, right?
“We’ve always talked about the hockey rules, you know, go to the ground and then you can stop it. But there needs to be a fine line, because it’s going to keep happening. You’re going to keep getting disrespected until it’s behind the scenes and it’s much worse.”
But not every driver was as gung-ho on the subject. Joey Logano, a driver that’s been in his fair share of post-race altercations himself in his younger years, has had to rewatch those fight highlights for almost decades.
“From things I did when I was 19 years old, and here I am as a 35-year-old, and I still got to live with those decisions.” Logano said. “… Those things just don’t add up as much anymore. You got to find better ways to these things.”
Not to mention, Logano has become a multi-time father in those 16 years, so he certainly isn’t a fan of his children seeing him in fights.
But that doesn’t mean he’s a pushover either.
“You think about [your kids] for sure, but that doesn’t mean you get walked on,” Logano said. “It doesn’t mean you don’t stick up for yourself. You definitely do that.”
Then there are those that are completely new to the world of NASCAR physicality.
Former Australian V8 Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen is taken aback by the whole debate. However, he still agrees there should be limitations.
“If you fought at home, you’d be banned for at least a year,” van Gisbergen said. “It’s not acceptable there, and I don’t know if it should be acceptable here too, either. I don’t really know, and I, thankfully, haven’t been put in that situation. But it’s certainly weird watching two friends have an argument and almost get into it last week, so hopefully that doesn’t happen to me.”
Been thinking about this one since Tanner brought it up in an article last week. It’s a difficult one to figure out. This differs from hockey, where teams have “goons”, who are good at fighting, and ensure aggressive conduct from the opposing team doesn’t go unpunished. So nearly all fights are somewhat evenly matched. Nobody (well, almost nobody) wants to see Hocevar or SVG pound someone small like Larson into the ground like a nail.
NASCAR differs from other high level auto racing series, in that much more contact, and especially contact with bad intentions, is tolerated on track. To a point, this is part of the essence of NASCAR, and seeing it officiated like Indycar or F1 would result in lifeless stock car racing at many tracks. But, this also means a driver who has been dumped by a competitor will inherently want to find a way to square the deal, which can lead to a fight.
The only way I see to avoid this would be to have on track incidents in NASCAR officiated a little more tightly. You blatantly dump a guy, you get parked. We see this, but it is rare, and usually only after a massive amount of history by the offending driver.
The tough part is the lesser altercations. Drawing a line between “rubbin’ is racin'” and overly aggressive would be quite difficult without moving the meter too far toward zero tolerance, or not far enough, resulting in more fights. Even then, what’s enough of a penalty? One lap near the beginning of a race often means little if a car is fast. One lap near the end of the race can mean the difference between 1st and 35th.
I like Kez, but his comment about where in the running order the wreck takes place makes no sense to me. If I’m running 30th, and 31st hooks me into the wall on purpose, we are probably going to have a “conversation” about that, barring the offending driver being suspended. Also, not every team is equipped to run for the win. 25th may be every bit as important, or even more important than 1st is to Hendrick or the like.
A “fight” only becomes an issue if someone chooses to show it. If fighting is
good for TV, but bad for the sport I think ‘bad for the sport’ eventually becomes bad for TV. These kinds of issues should be handled privately…outside of prying eyes.
Ultimately Nascar has to establish what it wants to be in order to be successful going forward. Is it “moonshiners” or “Madison Ave”?
Final thought, what happens when one of these 16 year olds get punched by a 30 year old? I know what happens in the real world. Good article
That’s one thing I’ve always thought was a little unfair in rules application. A driver dumps somebody, and maybe (depending on NASCAR interpretation) he has to pit under green and lose a lap at worst. But he’s still in the race and thanks to the “lucky dog” can still log a good finish (or even win) while the other guy is on the trailer. I think “rubbing is racing” is fine, but when you push enough somebody loses it – at that point I think if the car you spin is out of the race, the car that spun them should be out as well. Park both of ’em. They can still lean on each other, but if one wrecks they’re both done for the day.
A second clarification on that: if the car spins and continues, carry on. If they spin (don’t hit anything) and caution comes out, the car who spun them has to restart where (and on the same lap – if they lose laps getting to pit road and putting fresh tires on) the spun car restarts. Basically, just take away all incentive to wreck a guy to gain a position. When contact is involved, whatever happens to him happens to you.
As for fighting, meh. Adds drama I guess, but as long as it’s only fists (and generally there are enough crew guys around to stand in between / keep them separated), I’m generally fine with it. Most of the time it’s just a little jaw-jacking and a push here or a shove there. Is it good for the sport? I don’t know. A scuffle once or twice a year is fine, but if it’s all the time it just becomes the Jerry Springer Show.