NASCAR Truck Series: Johnny Sauter suspended for Gateway race

Johnny Sauter has been suspended and will not compete in the NASCAR Truck Series race at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway this Saturday night.

ThorSport Racing’s Johnny Sauter has been hit with a one-race NASCAR Truck Series suspension after his actions in the third and final stage of this past Sunday afternoon’s race at Iowa Speedway, the M&M’s 200.

On lap 137 of this 200-lap race around the four-turn, 0.875-mile (1.408-kilometer) Iowa Speedway oval in Newton, Iowa, Hattori Racing Enterprises’ Austin Hill got back at Sauter for an earlier incident by giving Sauter’s #13 Ford a nudge heading into turn three.

Sauter, who had moved Hill out of the way to make a pass in turn one shortly beforehand, got loose and spun out before hitting the wall, effectively ruining his chances of recording a sold finish as a result of the damage that was inflicted on his truck.

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Sauter came into the pits with this damage before reentering the track not even two laps later. Using his truck, which was still damaged, as a weapon, he spun out Hill’s #16 Toyota, drove it into the turn one wall, and accelerated into the driver side door as it was spinning. Hill somehow managed to recover to finish in a solid 12th place while Sauter was officially scored in 27th, as NASCAR parked him after this retaliatory move.

Now the 41-year-old Necedah, Wisconsin native will not compete in this Saturday night’s race, the Gateway 200, at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway.

Here is what NASCAR senior vice president of competition Scott Miller had to say about why Sauter was issued this one-race suspension, according to NASCAR.

"“We look back at the history of everything we’ve done and try to react with the precedents that we’ve set and then obviously tailoring those to the situation that we have at hand. In this case, we felt like his actions certainly warranted being sat down for an event, but it felt a little too harsh to take him straight out of the championship, so we think we landed on what we feel is fair and a deterrent.“We tend to look at incidents under caution as more of a retaliatory thing. Obviously, him driving half a track with a smoking truck and winding through a few cars to get to the 16 and then running over him, then bouncing off the wall and running into his door, it was pretty aggressive. It was definitely not anything that could in any way, shape or form be defended as a racing incident.”"

Sauter missing this 160-lap race around the four-turn, 1.25-mile (2.012-kilometer) World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway oval in Madison, Illinois will not affect his playoff eligibility. He won the race at Dover International Speedway in early May and likely secured a playoff berth by doing so.

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The Gateway 200 is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 from World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, June 22. The next NASCAR Truck Series race in which Johnny Sauter is scheduled to compete is the Camping World 225, which is scheduled to take place at Chicagoland Speedway in Joliet, Illinois on Friday, June 28. This race is set to be broadcast live on Fox Sports 1 beginning at 9:00 p.m. ET.

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