Unacceptable NASCAR fan interaction raises major questions

Unlike other sports, NASCAR begins its season with the biggest event of the year, the Daytona 500. The Daytona 500 also has the most extensive pre-race schedule of all of the races on the NASCAR Cup Series calendar.

With that in mind, fans are everywhere on race day. That was no different on the Sunday of the 68th running of the Daytona 500. The race went on without a hitch, after NASCAR moved the start time up to avoid the threat of bad weather.

While Tyler Reddick was celebrating his monumental win for 23XI Racing in the "Great American Race", something far more unacceptable took place on pit road.

NASCAR might grant too much access for fans

Daniel Suarez, who is in his first season with Spire Motorsports, ended up scoring the best finish for the three-car team in the season opener, as he drove his No. 7 Chevrolet to a 13th place finish.

After climbing from his car on pit road following the race, Suarez did what he normally does by giving interviews, saying what he had to say about his day.

Suddenly a rowdy fan, for lack of a better term, approached him, and he cut into the Mexican driver's live interview with Fox Deportes, the Spanish affiliate for Fox which was covering the race.

That fan, who has still yet to be identified, could be heard saying "47, 47, baby!", before slapping Suarez's shoulder. Suarez seemed to keep his cool and conducted the rest of the interview. But it was certainly awkward to say the least, let alone a massive no-no.

Fans can be rowdy; we totally understand that. But by no means does a fan belong putting his hands on a driver, let alone interrupting a driver's post-race interview.

Could rowdy fans ruin it for everybody?

That fan obviously took his access for granted, as he had a pit road pass and decided to interrupt a driver and put his hands on him, a major overstep and totally unacceptable.

These sorts of fans are the fans who ruin potential opportunities for others. There is no place for that in NASCAR, especially when no other non-motorsport lets you anywhere near the athletes like NASCAR does.

Hopefully that fan – and nobody else – will face the consequences, and it sure sounds like NASCAR is taking what happened very seriously.

NASCAR responds to Suarez incident

It appears NASCAR was quick to respond to what happened Sunday afternoon, as the incident is under investigation by NASCAR security, according to Mike Forde, the sport's managing director of racing communications.

Forde spoke about the incident on NASCAR's podcast Hauler Talk.

"He [Tom Bryant, NASCAR security] is aware and is working with the security team," Forde said. "If we do find out who this person is, it's certainly not going to end well for this particular person. We're looking into it. TBD if we're able to find out if the person is. But certainly an unfortunate incident that we're taking seriously and looking into."

Whatever comes of the investigation, this is something that cannot happen again, regardless of this person's intent or the point he was trying to make. It is a privilege to have access to the drivers, not a right. Someone obnoxiously interrupting one of them after he just got done racing in the biggest race in the sport could wreck that access for everybody.

Pit lane access is limited as it is, so what was someone like this doing there anyway?