Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar will NOT be penalized for their actions following Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway, NASCAR confirmed on Monday.
Steve O’Donnell, CEO of NASCAR, talked about the incident on Kevin Harvick’s Happy Hour Podcast on Monday, and regarding the incident, says NASCAR will not intervene with any kind of post-race penalty – a welcome change from previous iterations of pit road fights.
“If drivers are going to handle their own business, the way we looked at that, how it played out, we’re not going to encourage fighting, but what we are going to encourage is passion, right? And those are two guys — Blaney’s showing his passion, showing his fire. So no, there’s nothing coming from us in terms of [penalties]. We’ll obviously watch what happens the rest of the way, but nothing in terms of post-race penalties.”
In its communication, NASCAR does mention that they will be giving further review to the incident to determine whether any of the crew members involved will be penalized, with an announcement on a decision there being confirmed later in the week.
The incident in question happened after Saturday’s Bass Pro Shops Night Race, where Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar were involved in a tussle on pit road. Hocevar managed to land a pair of punches to the cheekbone of Blaney, and the driver of the No. 12 came back with a vengeance swinging towards the Spire Motorsports driver.




