Yahoo Autos Stenhouse fined, others suspended for All-Star fight
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. has been fined $75,000 for his physical altercation with Kyle Busch in the North Wilkesboro Speedway garage after Sunday night’s NASCAR All-Star Race.
Stenhouse was waiting at the back of Busch’s Richard Childress Racing hauler to confront him about their on-track contact. On lap 2, Busch spun Stenhouse in Turn 2 as retaliation after being put three-wide the lap before with Michael McDowell. Busch bounced off the outside wall and chased down Stenhouse to make contact.
In the garage, the two started out by debating the incident and disagreeing on what happened. Stenhouse threw a punch that started a melee that included crew members from both teams and his father, Ricky Stenhouse Sr.
“When you wait 198 laps and you make those decisions that were made we’re going to react to that,” NASCAR’s Elton Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “There could have been different decisions made. Once we get to the point where it gets physical, we want the two drivers to be able to have their time to express their differences but again, once it escalates to where there’s been a physical altercation there, we’re going to react. Granted there was no tunnel, granted there was no crossover bridge, but better decisions could have been made throughout that period of time between the incident that happened on the racetrack and the incident that happened in the garage post-race.”
Stenhouse Sr. has been indefinitely suspended for his role in the fight. He could be seen going after Busch after the punch was thrown.
JTG Daugherty Racing also had two of its crew members from Stenhouse’s team suspended.
Keith Matthews, the engine tuner, has been suspended for the next four Cup Series race weekends (through Iowa Speedway). Clint Myrick, a mechanic, has been suspended for the next eight Cup Series race weekends (through Pocono Raceway).
“When you have crew members and family members that put their hands on our athletes, our drivers, we’re going to react,” Sawyer said. “We’ve been consistent with this: When crew members get involved and family members get involved, we are going react, and that’s exactly what we did. We looked at all the audio and video from the incident on Sunday night.”
Kyle Busch was not penalized.
