A great deal has been made on Social Media over the on track incident that led to a brawl by the haulers between Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Kyle Busch at North Wilkesboro. The resulting penalty was to Stenhouse for fighting; nothing was said over the on track incident that led to the later events.
This past weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NASCAR took action after an on track incident involving Cole Custer and Austin Hill in the Xfinity Series race on Saturday afternoon.
NASCAR determined that Austin Hill intentionally wrecked Cole Custer and has fined him $25,000 and docked Hill 25 driver points in the standings. Officials cited the NASCAR rule book Section 4.4B of the Member Code of Conduct relating to “wrecking or spinning another vehicle, whether or not that vehicle is removed from Competition as a result and any actions deemed to compromise the safety of an Event or otherwise pose a dangerous risk to the safety of Competitors, Officials, spectators, or others.”
With 17 laps remaining in the BetMGM 300, Hill and Custer made contact that cut a tire on Hill’s number 21 car, causing Hill to lose control of the car and crash into Custer; however, Hill continued to make contact with Custer’s number 00 car, eventually sending Custer into the inside wall. Hill was able to continue and finished the race two laps down; but, Custer was out of the race.
The loss of points drops Hill out of the lead and into third place behind new leader Chandler Smith and second place driver Cole Custer.
Two Craftsman Truck Series crews were charged with having a single lug nut improperly secured in post race inspection –
The Tricon Garage number five truck driven by Dean Thompson
and the Front Row Motorsport number 38 truck driven by Layne Riggs
As a result, crew chiefs Derek Smith and Dylan Cappello have been fined $2,500 each.
There were no further penalties for the number eleven truck driven by Corey Heim after he was disqualified from the race and placed in last place for having three lug nuts improperly secured.