Following an intense weekend at the Nashville Superspeedway, NASCAR has handed down various penalties to a few crews.
The biggest penalty handed down was to Carson Hocevar for spinning out Jeff Burton during a caution. Hocevar was fined $50,000 and was assessed a loss of 25 driver points for the violation of the code of conduct.
Other penalties included a post-race inspection that turned up unsecured lug nuts on the Matt Mills No. 42 and the Matt Crafton No. 88. As a result, crew chiefs Jon Leonard (42) and Jeriod Prince (88) were each fined $2,500.
Overall a reasonably light week of NASCAR penalties, and not particularly surprising to see Hocevar’s name added to the list after Sunday’s incident, which left industry insiders floored there wasn’t an immediate penalty.
Carson Hocevar incident draws heavy scrutiny
One of the things NASCAR didn’t penalize for immediately during the race was a Carson Hocevar bump of Harrison Burton that certainly appeared intentional.
The two were driving in a relatively big pack during a caution, when the front of the pack seemed to slow down.
The drivers around Hocever on either side and even behind him seemed to pick up on the cue and lowered their speeds accordingly to avoid contact. Not Hocevar. He kept on the gas, got into the back of Burton and sent him spinning.
NASCAR insiders were left befuddled by the lack of an immediate penalty after the race.
“In the moment immediately we’re like, oh yep. OK, well, that’s going to be a penalty,” insider Jeff Gluck said on The Teardown podcast. “I know now that you say that NASCAR has said after the race they’re going to look into the Hocevar thing and it’s going to be one of those Tuesday things. How are you in race control Friday night and you immediately see the Layne Riggs things and go boom, two laps reckless driving. …You give two laps for that, but this seemed like pretty blatant to me, and nothing? You gotta wait till Tuesday?”
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