Dale Earnhardt Jr. isn’t sure that the fines and crew member suspensions issued for NASCAR race manipulation after this past weekend at Martinsville Speedway is quite enough to discourage it from happening again.
None of the three drivers involved — Bubba Wallace, Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon — were suspended. NASCAR senior vice president of competiton Elton Sawyer said he considered driver suspensions but instead suspended the involved crew chiefs, spotters and competition directors, while also issuing $200,000 in fines to each team.
“In this case, we felt like we wanted to focus more on the team leadership, something that we haven’t done in the past,” Sawyer said.
“I promise you, that does not exclude going forward — and we have meetings coming up this week with our drivers — and we will get that point across to them and be very clear that when you do anything that is going to compromise the integrity of our sport, we’re going to react.”
The idea behind suspending drivers is that it hits teams in their ability to connect with sponsors and do business over a race weekend.
“I saw Jeff Gluck comment immediately he didn’t think this was enough, and I can understand that. It’s kind of how I felt,” Earnhardt said about the Wallace, Chastain and Dillon teams being fined $100,000 and losing driver points. “…I honestly don’t know much $100,000 hurts. …I think in some cases drivers have paid their own fines, in other cases, the team has backed them up.”
“I think it’s a lot of money, I think the points are a lot, that’s for sure. But I still stand by the idea that to really get someone’s attention, I think parking them a race is the way it goes. Some people have said to my idea of parking the drivers, ‘Oh no, no, no. The drivers were just doing what they were told.’ Yes, you’re right.
“Is parking the drivers a little bit misguided? Absolutely. But what it does is it will be enough of a deterrent for someone to not do it again. It’s not a death knell or a death sentence to a team. There’s no one here with a great idea or way to penalize the manufacturer or deter them. People say, ‘Oh go after the manufacturer’s points.’ I don’t know if that really matters, does it? We don’t seem to care about these 50 points for the drivers. Do we know they care about that?”
