NASCAR issued AUD $900,000 (USD $600,000) in fines to three different teams and suspended nine crew members for breaching conduct rules.
Trackhouse Racing, Richard Childress Racing, and 23XI Racing were implicated in the breach of a rule that includes race manipulation and actions detrimental to stock car racing.
Senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer said harsher penalties would be forthcoming and said the latest sanctions should serve as a warning.
Sawyer said they considered banning the drivers but believed the blame was largely on the respective team leaders.
“We took and looked at the most recent penalty that we had written for an infraction very similar… We felt like we wanted to ramp this one up, and we did,” said Sawyer.
“We did that in a way that we included team leadership. In this one, something we felt like we want to get our point across that it’s the responsibility of all others, the team owners, the team leadership, as well as ourselves here at NASCAR to uphold the integrity of our sport, our racing, to make sure that when our fans show up on a given day and watch a race that they’re seeing the best competition possible and there’s nothing in there that’s manipulating that.”
Sawyer said future sanctions could include penalising manufacturers.
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Shane van Gisbergen and his Kaulig Racing team escaped any sanction despite being implicated in the radio saga.
The New Zealander laughed off a “message from Chevrolet” suggesting he baulk the #12 of Ryan Blaney, who hit the #16 driver earlier in the race.
“We do feel like this is the right path at this time,” said Sawyer.
“We will make sure, going forward, if we need to, we will ramp it up again, we will include drivers, we will include OEs going forward if we need to, we will get this point across.
“We discussed all the above. The group that we landed on as well as the drivers, we felt like in this case we wanted to focus more on the team leadership, something that we haven’t done in the past.
“I promise you, it does not exclude [the drivers], going forward, and we have meetings coming up with our drivers, and we will get that point across to them and be very clear that when you do anything that’s going to compromise the integrity of our sport, we are going to react.
“We’ll look at all of our racing as we normally do in the off-season. If there’s any tweaks or changes that we need to make, then we will make them as well.”
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