The race manipulation incidents in the Martinsville eliminator raised questions about the integrity of the sport. Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon helped Chevy teammate William Byron by causing a blockade behind them. Had Byron lost a spot, Christopher Bell would have progressed and Chevy would have been out of championship contention. Also, Toyota was equally desperate for a second car in the playoffs after Tyler Reddick already had a spot in Phoenix, winning the Homestead race.

Bell needed a position to gain draw points with Byron because, in case of a draw, the driver with the best finish in any of the three races in round three progresses. And Bell had a P2 in Las Vegas to help him. To let the #20 driver pass, Bubba Wallace slowed down on the final stretch. These blatant displays of race manipulation had NASCAR penalize the culprits, in this case, the #1, #3, and #23. However, the question that currently remains unanswered is are the penalties enough for this to be a lesson. A NASCAR insider disagrees!

NASCAR needs to impose harsher penalties!

As of now, NASCAR hasn’t suspended any of the three drivers. They have only been fined $100,000 and have been docked 50 points from their season. One race suspension has come for their crew chiefs, spotters, and race executives, along with a $100,000 fine for the teams as well. While a $200,000 fine per team might sound like a lot, is it? Wouldn’t this set a precedence that you can manipulate a race and get away with it by paying a fine?

NASCAR Vice President Elton Sawyer, justifying the penalties, said, “And this one, something that we feel like that, you know, we want to get our point across that it’s a responsibility of all of us, the team owners, the team leadership as well as ourselves here at NASCAR to uphold the integrity of our sport…We plan this week to have meetings with all of our stakeholders to make our point very clear going forward that we will include drivers in this if we have to. This is something that’s not gonna be tolerated.” Only talk and no actions aren’t going to change anything.

Even the 50 points docked are of drivers who are out of the playoffs and it rendered no effect on their standings. Bubba Wallace and Chastain are where they were. Only Dillon moved from 28th to 33rd. NASCAR spotter Brett Griffin recently referred to the 2013 Michael Waltrip Racing debacle at Richmond, which led to the team eventually shutting down. According to Griffin, those are the kind of precedents NASCAR should set to fix this broken system.

Griffin on the Door Bumper Clear Podcast said, “I think you know it was 11 years ago whenever the thing happened at Richmond with the MWR deal. And Clint (Bowyer) was never proven to have done anything wrong there. Despite what you think you can’t prove he wrecked on purpose. What got him was Ty Norris’ comments on the radio with Brian Vickers. But nonetheless they fined every car, they took points from every car. That means it was a big deal. Essentially, it put MWR out of business.”

According to Griffin, if NASCAR wants to bring a significant change or send a message to the culprits, they have to bring harsher penalties on everyone involved. “So when you come in and you make those types of fines and points (Like in the case of MWR) it gets people’s attention.” Griffin put forth a hypothetical situation explaining the kind of consequences that would be impactful in this case. Griffin said, “If the 23 gets hit and I’m not saying he will but if he gets hit with a 200-point penalty today that’s going to take a lot of money out of their pocket.” 

Unless such penalties are issued, this might keep repeating. Like in 2022, Cole Custer slowed down to let Chase Briscoe pass and progress to the next round at the ROVAL. NASCAR issued the same penalties as Martinsville in that case. No driver was suspended. Had they been harsher there, this probably would have been avoided. And this is surprising since NASCAR is known to be harsher than this. The perfect example is the Michael Waltrip Racing incident.

What happened with Michael Waltrip Racing?

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In 2013, it was the Richmond race, the last one before the chase began, including 12 drivers. In the race, Ryan Newman was leading and poised to win bagging a spot in the 12. But MWR had different plans. With just 10 laps to go, Clint Bowyer spun bringing out a caution. This gave Brian Vickers a chance to pit. It was later revealed that all this was orchestrated to let Martin Truex Jr. get a spot over Vickers and have enough points to qualify.

This led to the elimination of Newman as he was dropped spot in a race which was a must-win for him. After a lot of uproar from Newman’s SHR team and then NASCAR analyzed the video and in-car radio conversation. The most incriminating aspect of the incident was the radio exchange between Bowyer and crew chief Brian Pattie. NASCAR concluded that this conversation initiated a chain of events involving team orders, ultimately resulting in Bowyer intentionally spinning his car. NASCAR also investigated a radio conversation between Vickers and his crew chief Ty Norris, where Norris ordered a pit stop with three laps remaining to potentially benefit Truex Jr.

As a result, Bowyer was fined $300,000 and docked off his 50 points. Not just that even Vickers and MTJ (who had no direct involvement in the race manipulation), also had 50 points docked off. This led to MTJ being ousted from the top 12 and Ryan Newman being reinstated. This was followed by several of the organization’s sponsors—including their primary and biggest sponsor, NAPA Auto Parts abruptly cut ties with the organization. Two seasons later, the team went out of business.

If such were the implications of indulging in race manipulation, no team probably would even think of doing it. What do you think about this? Were the NASCAR penalties enough? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.