Did NASCAR dig their own hole with Bubba Wallace’s response?

Has NASCAR dug their own hole with the whole Bubba Wallace situation, given how they have handled drivers admitting intent in the past?

Many have called for 23XI Racing’s Bubba Wallace to be suspended after the incident during Sunday afternoon’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway involving himself and Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson.

Larson attempted a three-wide move to the inside on Wallace and Stewart-Haas Racing’s Kevin Harvick, but he couldn’t quite clear Wallace on the exit of turn four of the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) Las Vegas, Nevada oval.

While there was no contact between Larson’s #5 Chevrolet and Wallace’s #45 Toyota, Wallace did not lift and ran out of room on the exit of turn four, leading to slight contact with the wall.

Larson pulled to the inside in an attempt to complete the move, but Wallace came with him and hooked him in the right rear.

Both cars spun, causing a wreck which also collected the #20 Toyota of Joe Gibbs Racing’s Christopher Bell. The wreck had massive playoff implications, as Bell is one of the eight remaining championship contenders, and while Larson himself isn’t, his #5 team is still in the running for the owner championship.

Wallace then proceeded to break a safety-related rule by climbing out of his car and walking on a live track as he headed over to where Larson’s car had come to a halt.

After initially slipping upon arrival, he shoved Larson five times, though he failed to provoke the reigning series champion into an actual fight.

He ultimately blamed the wreck on a steering issue, though to everybody watching (and seeing NBC’s full throttle graphic), it looked 100% intentional, in which case it would have been a situation where he was using his car as a weapon.

While Wallace wasn’t called to the hauler, NASCAR stated afterward that they were going to be reviewing the entire incident from start to finish. They will certainly have the data and resources available to make a decision as to whether or not they felt it was intentional.

Wallace not admitting he did it on purpose is by no means a surprise, given NASCAR’s history of penalizing drivers who tell the truth.

He told NBC Sports reporter Marty Snider to “stop fishing” when he asked about the concept of retaliation, and even in his apology, he did not admit it.

He apologized for what happened with Larson off the track afterward, and he apologized to Bell and the #20 team because of the impact it had on their race — and championship pursuit.

While we’ll await NASCAR’s findings on Wallace’s intent, or lack thereof, it is worth noting that Wallace himself was given a hefty penalty in November 2019 after an incident at Texas Motor Speedway in which he purposely spun out to cause a caution flag because he had a flat tire.

He wasn’t penalized at first. But after stating that he did it on purpose — and that others had done the same thing in the past and that NASCAR wasn’t doing anything about it — he was penalized.

Admitting it is what cost him.

Not surprisingly, other drivers since then — most notably Kyle Busch after the March 2021 Truck Series race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway — avoid admitting to doing the same, even when it was blatantly obvious.

It boils down to the fact that drivers know telling the truth can only lead to penalties.

However, using one’s car as a weapon is a bit different than saving yourself from losing a lap with a flat tire, and doing so now, of all times, makes it worse.

While NASCAR hasn’t been super harsh with recent instances of retaliation, this is by far the most egregious-looking act we have seen this season, and the fact that concussions have become a major issue in the Next Gen era only makes things worse.

So while you could argue that NASCAR is in a lose-lose situation — if they drop the hammer on Wallace, they will be penalizing him more than others, and if they don’t, they will have effectively let him off the hook for arguably the most dangerous move we’ve seen — this truly is a unique situation.

They actually haven’t dug themselves a hole here. It’s not as if they can’t act simply because he hasn’t given anything away.

The “consistently inconsistent” line we hear whenever NASCAR makes a crazy decision will hardly apply here if they decide to issue a massive penalty or even a suspension.

No two incidents are truly alike, so this is an area in which it is hard to set or even follow a precedent. There is no predetermined rule for a case like this, and that could ironically be a good thing.

You’d almost have to think — or hope, for that matter — that if NASCAR were indeed to find that Wallace did it intentionally, he would be given a worse penalty than he would have been given had he straight-up admitted it.

What better way to stop drivers from getting off lightly simply because they don’t admit their intent? While no two incidents are alike, they still have the ability to send a message.

Or, giving Wallace the benefit of the doubt for a second, maybe he did have a steering issue, and it will all have been an overreaction, though that’s hard to imagine, given his immediate pursuit of Larson afterward. Let’s wait and see.