NASCAR: Charlotte Penalties Make One Thing Clear

Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway there were more fireworks off of the track than there were on the track. Following the race Brad Keselowski was brake-checked by Denny Hamlin; this then sent off a chain reaction where Keselowski decided to make contact with Hamlin’s car and then the car of Matt Kenseth on pit road. While trying to make contact with Kenseth, Keselowski accidentally hit Tony Stewart who had no problem immediately putting his No. 14 into reverse and pancaking the front end of Keselowski’s machine. As we all know things only got worse in the garage area as Hamlin chased Keselowski, Kenseth tackled Keselowski from behind and Keselowski may or may not have done some excessive tire spinning while driving through the garage.

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When it was all said and done the only question that remained was what sort of action NASCAR was going to take. Earlier this season there was an altercation in the garage area between Casey Mears and Marcos Ambrose. During that altercation Mears got into the face of Ambrose and then shoved him, ultimately that confrontation ended when Ambrose threw a hook that caught Mears in the face. The result of the situation was that both drivers received penalties from NASCAR. With that being the most recent example to go off of one would assume that there would have been plenty of penalties to go around after Charlotte.

However, that simply wasn’t the case.

Of the four drivers involved in the Charlotte drama only Keselowski and Stewart received discipline. Both drivers were fined and placed probation for the next four races, neither driver was docked and points. Kenseth and Hamlin did not receive any sort of punishment from NASCAR despite the fact that Kenseth more or less jumped Keselowski from behind between the haulers and placed him in a modified version of a headlock/choke hold.

Peter Casey-USA TODAY Sports

The way in which NASCAR decided to handle this situation makes one thing clear and that is that this is the kind of drama that NASCAR wants to see in the chase. The only ones who got in trouble were the ones who used their cars as a weapon and trouble is a loose term because the fines were not that steep. All season long NASCAR has been feeding fans lines about how much action, excitement and drama the chase is going to have. The aftermath that was Charlotte delivered everything that NASCAR has been preaching and it’s quite evident that NASCAR is okay with it.

NASCAR fans ate up every moment of what transpired Saturday night. The majority of the storylines and coverage heading into Talladega are centered around whether or not there is going to be any carryover from any of the drivers who were involved at Charlotte. Other major news outlets that normally would not cover NASCAR have done so this week because of what took place Saturday night. NASCAR handed out some penalties to save face if you will but ultimately their actions have made it clear to fans and drivers that garage altercation and confrontations are okay. Even when announcing the penalties on Tuesday Robin Pemberton noted that NASCAR wants “the drivers to continue to be themselves.”

NASCAR has a long history of being wishy-washy when it comes to discipline and as a result many fans will file this under that category. However, this is not a case of NASCAR being inconsistent as much as it is a case of NASCAR allowing drivers to fit the mold of what NASCAR wants the chase to be. If NASCAR had dropped the proverbial hammer on any of these drivers it would have been foolish on their part seeing as how they have been the ones literally hyping up how something like this could happen at any moment during the chase. It’s clear that NASCAR liked what they saw at Charlotte and now they are most likely hoping that it translates into ratings this weekend at Talladega.

Christopher Olmstead is the Editor of BeyondTheFlag.com on the FanSided Network. Follow us on Twitter @Beyond_The_Flag and “Like” us on Facebook.

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