After Bubba Wallace Pressurized NASCAR to Be Consistent for His Kyle Larson Ban, Driver Punches Colleague at Martinsville

The penultimate race of the NASCAR Cup Series season was the Xfinity 500 at Martinsville Speedway. The biggest highlight was Ross Chastain’s heroic move that allowed him to enter the Championship 4 Race next week. But unfortunately,  in similar circumstances in the Xfinity Series, something ugly turned up which reminded us of Bubba Wallace in Las Vegas.

Sunday afternoon’s race had great importance in the run-up to next week’s Xfinity Series Championship 4 Race in Phoenix. With multiple drivers hanging near the cut-off line, there was bound to be intense driving, and emotions flying high. But it seems like the stage got the better of Richard Childress Racing’s Austin Hill. Proceedings started poorly for the driver as he had to start the race from behind due to a radiator problem in his Chevy during qualifying.

He managed to muster a 10th position in the first stage followed by a 7th position in the second stage. Hill was battling Sam Mayer for the last spot on the grid for next week’s race in Phoenix. Neither however managed to make the cut, with the last spot going to Ty Gibbs. With the loss on his mind, Hill got in a fight with Jordan Anderson Racing’s Myatt Snider. Evidence on record shows Hill throwing a punch at Snider with the latter then falling down on the ground.

Speaking to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports, Hill said “I’m standing at my car, somebody came up to me and starts running their mouth. I kept warning them to walk away. I’m already mad that I’m not in the playoffs and situations that happened on the race track. And they just kept on and kept on and kept on. They ended up saying the right words that p***** me off enough and some things happened.”

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The whole incident is reminiscent of the ugly occurrences at Las Vegas Motor Speedway where Bubba Wallace did something similar to Kyle Larson. Having been penalized, the question now arises – what about this time?

Pressure on NASCAR with the Bubba Wallace incident in the backdrop

NASCAR didn’t acknowledge the Hill-Snider incident as videos were not found on the day of the race. Now that videos have emerged, investigations have seemingly begun. 

With Wallace returning after serving his one-race suspension, he said prior to Martinsville “I totally accept the penalty and the repercussions that came from my actions. I talked to [Steve] O’Donnell, and I talked to [Steve] Phelps, and I said, ‘Hey, I’m good with being the example if we can keep his consistent moving forward.’ Because it’s happened multiple times this year, and it’s something that may still continue to happen for other drivers down the road.

“I’ve definitely learned my lesson, but we have to be consistent with this, no matter if it’s here at Martinsville or Daytona or Talladega. We’ve got to keep it consistent across all the boards and all the series. So, that was the conversation. It was a good conversation.”

Bubba’s conversation with the top brass at NASCAR signifies that his incident was meant to be the last one – it wasn’t though. The heat is now on O’Donnell and Phelps to decide what quantum of punishment would be appropriate to dissuade incidents like these.

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With the only angle available yet, Hill’s ‘attack’ seemed worse if you compare Snider’s fall to the ground with how Larson had reacted. Moreover, Hill and Snider were surrounded by teammates – it could have snowballed into something much larger and much worse. NASCAR has the decision to make; it’s going to be an important one.