In the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, NASCAR issued suspensions to the 51 car driven by Jeremy Clements after the left rear tire came off on the track during the Cuervo 300 on lap 93. Front tire changer Shiloh Windsor and jackman Nicholas Covery have been suspended for the next two races for violating Sections 8.8.10.4.A&D in the NASCAR Rule Book.
Rivalries are as much a part of NASCAR racing as changing tires and filling the fuel tank. Some of those rivalries stay on the track; while other spill over into out and out fights.
Last weekend at Chicagoland Speedway, Austin Hill (an O’Reilly Auto Parts Series driver driving the second Richard Childress Racing car after the death of Kyle Busch) and New Zealand born Cup Series driver for Trackhouse Racing Shane van Gisbergen have become a rivalry that is quickly escalating past simple on track incidents.
Early in the race (lap 48) van Gisbergen made contact with Hill, causing some significant damage to the rear of Hill’s car and ultimately knock him out of the race to finish in 37th or 38 drivers. During the caution flag, Hill sideswiped van Gisbergen.
In releasing their penalty report on Tuesday, NASCAR officials chose not to issue any penalties in relation to the event.
As a part of the NASCAR podcast “Hauler Talk”, NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde said that NASCAR officials would be having a conversation with Austin Hill and Shane van Gisbergen before the race this weekend in Atlanta at EchoPark Speedway. Forde noted, “we want to have a discussion and make sure that it doesn’t boil over into a significant problem at Atlanta or beyond. So we plan to have that conversation on Saturday.”
Forde said that “NASCAR competition strategist Scott Miller began studying throttle, steering and braking data at the Remote Race Control center immediately after the incident and then reviewed the entire race Monday.”
Immediately after making contact with Austin Hill, Shane van Gisbergen radioed his crew that the incident was not done on purpose, it was an accident.
Hill does not agree!
Forde added, “we looked to see if there were any anomalies throughout the race and something that spurred this that maybe was payback from earlier. We went through all the radio transmissions to see if there was anything that rose to kind of a smoking gun. Camera angles and all available resources, as we always say. And nothing in our eyes proved definitively this was 100% intentional and penalty-worthy. There’s enough reasonable doubt to where it didn’t rise to the penalty for us here,” Forde said. “If you remove that reasonable doubt, then you’re going to get a penalty. If you say you’re going to do it and then do it, that is going to rise to the level of a penalty.”
Austin Hill and Shane van Gisbergen were not the only drivers having an issue on track at Chicagoland. Zane Smith and the man broadcasters have name the Hurricane, Carson Hocevar also had an on track incident and will be meeting with NASCAR officials over the weekend.
Forde spoke on the confrontation saying, “the same review went into it, and nothing rose to the level of there being no doubt it was intentional, so we are opting to not penalize there. But we’ll be having a conversation in the hauler between those two drivers, too. So it’ll be a busy hauler.”