NASCAR champion fined after voting in Presidential Election

The National Motorsports Appeals Panel ruled this week to uphold the $12,500 fine that NASCAR issued to eventual Truck Series champion Ty Majeski for skipping Championship 4 Media Day in Charlotte, North Carolina to vote in the Presidential Election, in-person, in his home state of Wisconsin on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.

The fine from later that week, which culminated for Majeski on Friday, November 8 with his first Truck Series title at Phoenix Raceway, had flown somewhat under-the-radar, in part because there was an overarching feeling that NASCAR would review the circumstances of Majeski's absence and overturn the fine. That, after all, would have been the reasonable, commonsense approach.

Instead, NASCAR made themselves look completely incompetent by fining one of their drivers a five-figure sum for fulfilling his civic duty and exercising what is arguably the most important right he has as an American citizen, and now that fine has been foolishly upheld.

It is wrong on so many levels.

There is a case to be made that Majeski certainly had options to vote other than in-person on the day of the election. I think I speak for everybody reading this article in saying that the constant mail we received leading up to this election encouraged everything from early voting to mail-in voting to Election Day voting, and it didn't matter what side you were on.

So the ThorSport Racing driver had options. But that, in part, only makes NASCAR look worse, because they have effectively penalized him for selecting one of those very valid – and all of which legal – options.

Majeski said he wanted to vote in person to ensure his vote was counted, a valid statement considering the fact that there is always a chance for a mail foul-up.

Speaking from secondhand experience, voters are generally told of such foul-ups so that they can be corrected, but there isn't always enough time to make the corrections, regardless of when you send it in. The system will never be perfect, and Majeski knows that.

And I'm sure many of us are old enough to remember when Election Day was, in fact, Election Day, so the idea that NASCAR is targeting an Election Day voter is also somewhat disconcerting, even if not completely what you might consider "voter suppression".

For the sake of avoiding controversy, and the fact that leaning one way or another inherently alienates half of our readers, I'm not going to go into specifics, because I'm sure we could all list several.

But NASCAR has a knack for conveniently saying "no" to politics, while also conveniently allowing certain politically motivated ideas into the sport, and I think it's fair to say that, especially over the past four or five years, they have a knack for doing it to appease both sides.

Even when the inclusion itself hasn't been explicitly political, the fact that they have allowed certain matters into the sport which are frequently used by politicians to rile up their voter bases makes it a hard sell to suggest that "no, that's not actually political".

It's a classic case of pick and choose.

But this is much deeper, yet so much simpler, than any of that. The guy is quite literally being fined for not giving up his right to vote.

Bottom line, the right to vote is the right to vote. Period. It is a blanket statement, and that statement covers you up until, and including, Election Day. Majeski exercised that right and was fined $12,500 for doing so.

NASCAR, of course, has a duty to enforce their rules too, and I'm sure Majeski isn't the only person in the United States who had to make special arrangements regarding his work schedule on Election Day to ensure his voice was heard. The world doesn't grind to a standstill on Election Day. He was bound by the rule that mandates he be at Championship 4 Media Day.

And he obviously wasn't. Fair enough.

But that in itself is an issue as well, because it's partially on NASCAR that this happened at all. The Panel stated that "Driver failed to meet contractual agreement with NASCAR. One of the most, if not most, important media obligations of the entire season.”

Ok, but what about "one of the most, if not most, important elections of our lifetime?" Isn't that what we were all told in the weeks and months leading up to November 5?

It could have been managed better by both sides so that it didn't come to this. Majeski surely could have communicated better with NASCAR, but NASCAR could have at least made an effort to look beyond themselves for half a second and realize that this was by no means an everyday occurrence.

It's not like this media obligation happened before the election and Majeski intentionally chose that day to vote early, thus enabling him to skip it. He was clearly not trying to manipulate the system in his favor.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for NASCAR.

Because there was obviously some kind of miscommunication somewhere along the line and the reason for the mishap was obviously both valid and important, NASCAR easily could have let this one slide and issued some kind of memorandum to teams and drivers about how to manage this sort of situation the future.

While Presidential Elections happen once every four years, Election Day itself happens every year, and it's probably pretty important for everybody to be on the same page sooner rather than later to avoid a similar situation.

But no. Of course not. Because that would have been the logical, fair thing to do, and it wouldn't have allowed NASCAR to collect another undeserved driver check.

And when has NASCAR ever passed up the lowest hanging fruit possible when they've had an opportunity to thump their chest for all to see?

Instead, they decided to "make a statement" by fining a Wisconsin voter $12,500 for exercising his right to vote. That is really what it boils down to.

They easily could have made that same statement another way. Instead, they opted to go for a precedent that was always sure to open up a whole new can or worms and add grease to an already slippery slope. Would you expect anything less?