Let me get this out of the way up top.
In a vacuum, I believe Bubba Wallace should have been suspended for his on-track actions against Kyle Larson Sunday (Oct. 16) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Full stop.
If no other NASCAR races were held from Jan. 1 to Oct. 15, 2022, then I’d be all on board with Wallace’s one-race suspension for intentionally wrecking Larson after they made contact and Wallace was forced into the wall as they exited off turn 4.
But guess what?
We don’t live in a vacuum. History is a collection of events in an ongoing narrative.
Let me give you some reminders about what we’ve seen from the NASCAR Powers That Be in 2022.
We live in a world where on July 29, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver Carson Hocevar clearly intentionally hooked Colby Howard into the outside wall in retaliation at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park. Howard’s truck was wrecked, and his night was done.
Afterward, Hocevar played dumb in an interview with Frontstretch, saying he had no idea what happened.
When the following week’s penalty report came out, NASCAR did nothing in regards to Hocevar’s actions. No fine, no points penalty and definitely no suspension.
However, a few months later they penalized him a lap for intentionally bringing out a caution at Talladega Superspeedway.
Now let’s back up a few weeks to July 2 at Road America. You’re forgiven if you weren’t aware of the Hocevar incident.
But there’s no way you missed, after a bit of rough racing between them, Noah Gragson intentionally hooking Sage Karam on a straightaway. What followed was a melee that collected 13 cars and, as reported by NBC Sports a weekend later, amounted to at least $250,000 in damage.
Afterward, Gragson even owned up to it: “He starts it, I’m the one who finished.”
After a few days of social media outrage — though you kind of hope NASCAR doesn’t make decisions based on an echo chamber that doesn’t reflect reality — Gragson was penalized.
“I think is as you look at this, our actions are really specific to what took place on the racetrack,” Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR’s Chief Operating Officer, said. “When we look at how that incident occurred, in our minds, really a dangerous act, we thought that was intentional, and put other competitors at risk and as we look at the sport and where we are today, and where we want to draw that line going forward. We thought that definitely crossed the line and that’s what we focused on in terms of making this call.”
Oh wait, O’Donnell didn’t say that after the 13-car incident caused by Gragson. He said that on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio after Wallace’s suspension was announced.
What was Gragson’s penalty? He was docked 30 points and fined $35,000.
Gragson lost no spots in the points standings, and he got to race in both the NASCAR Cup and Xfinity series races the next weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway. Gragson’s season wasn’t impacted at all.
As I wrote then, it was all meaningless.
I’ve seen more than a few comments over the last few days saying the Hocevar and Gragson incidents were different from Wallace’s, they were in development series, they’re learning, the cars aren’t the same.
If you’re going to throw the book at someone to teach them a lesson, you should probably do it when they’re developing.
That’s basic parenting, right?
We can’t leave July without at least mentioning Ryan Blaney spinning out Daniel Suarez after the checkered flag of the July 31 Cup race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
Nothing was done.
Here’s some more from O’Donnell appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
“When we look at this incident, you’re not only endangering one, but there’s a lot of cars out there at speed,” O’Donnell said, accurately describing the race environments at IRP and Road America. “It’s a high rate of speed, it’s on an intermediate track, all those things factor in, … this could have been race No. 2 on an intermediate, and it’s the same call.”
Frankly, my dear, that last part is a whole lot of bull.
Let’s go back in time a grand total of three weeks to Sept. 25 at Texas Motor Speedway, which last time I checked is an intermediate track.
I’ll allow O’Donnell this: the situation between William Byron and Denny Hamlin — which NASCAR officials said they straight-up missed when it happened — occurred under a caution that had come out seconds before for an incident right in front of Byron and Hamlin.
But that didn’t stop Byron from ramming into the back of a defenseless Hamlin — on the front straightaway — with retaliatory message that sent him spinning through the infield grass with no idea where Hamlin’s car would come to a stop.
Here's a look at what happened between @WilliamByron and @dennyhamlin. #NASCARPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/UgPH2EIiNd
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) September 26, 2022
While Byron said the spin wasn’t intentional, NASCAR wound up attempting to penalize him by docking him 25 points and fining him $50,000. Hendrick Motorsports appealed, and the points penalty was wiped out, but the fine was raised to $100,000.
NASCAR made no move to try to suspend Byron for a retaliatory move on an intermediate track.
You know who they also didn’t suspend, let alone penalize at all?
Kyle Larson.
“We’ve all done it — maybe not all of us — but I have,” Larson said Sunday. “I’ve let the emotions get the best of me before too. I know [Wallace’s] probably still upset. I’m sure with everything going [on], he’ll know that he made a mistake in the retaliation part, and I’m sure he’ll think twice about that next time.”
It’s been a long year, but waaaaay back in February, in the first race of the year in the Busch Clash at the L.A. Coliseum, it was Larson who was dealing out the retaliation.
In the middle of the race, Justin Haley attempted to pass Larson on the inside coming out of turn 4.
They made pretty significant contact.
Larson didn’t like it.
I don’t remember anyone calling for Larson to be punished.
Time and again this season, NASCAR did two things when it came to retaliation during a race: nothing or it put window dressing on the issue.
“Boys have at it” hung over everything, even when Hamlin harassed Ross Chastain for almost an entire race at World Wide Technology Raceway.
That is, until this week.
This entire column has been devoted to examples from solely the last nine months.
Because recent precedent is important. I don’t care what happened in 2011 or in 2015.
It’s been seven years since NASCAR suspended a Cup Series driver for a flagrant act of retaliation, when it took Matt Kenseth out of competition for two races for taking a damaged car back out onto the track at Martinsville Speedway and ramming Joey Logano into the turn 1 wall.
Remember, the fans loved it.
The Wallace incident rises nowhere close to that level.
“When we look at drivers, historically, it’s been very rare that we suspend drivers. We don’t take that action lightly,” O’Donnell said.
Clearly.
“So in this case that’s an action we’ve rarely move forward with when it comes to a driver,” O’Donnell said. “There’s comparisons to what we’ve done in the past. But as we’ve always said, we need to ratchet things up where we see that there’s a line that’s crossed.”
OK, a line was crossed. Apparently a line in the sand.
Again, I’m only going off the precedent set in 2022.
Far worse incidents have occurred this year that violated the same rule that was cited to defend the Wallace suspension.
This is the rule cited in the penalty report for the Bubba Wallace one-race suspension. pic.twitter.com/7CViqHmFyD
— Bob Pockrass (@bobpockrass) October 18, 2022
If you want Wallace to be the example, for whatever arbitrary reason, make clear this is it. Draw that line — or the specific subsection of the rulebook — with a sharpie.
Anything resembling the retaliation seen Sunday — no matter the series, the driver, race, religion or creed — will result in a one-race suspension.
Anyway, I’m starting a stopwatch.
I’ll stop it the first time I see NASCAR or a related entity promoting an incident NASCAR deemed suspension-worthy to draw attention to the sport.
Wait, what’s that?
It already happened?
Some day maybe in my lifetime this sport will get past 1979 pic.twitter.com/M3WOdXBbqO
— Pete Pistone (@PPistone) October 18, 2022
2022 is Daniel McFadin’s ninth year covering NASCAR, with six years spent at NBC Sports. This is his second year writing columns for Frontstretch. His columns won third place in the National Motorsports Press Association awards for 2021. His work can also be found at SpeedSport.com. You can hear more from him on his podcast, Dropping the Hammer.
Bubba Wallace Suspension Coverage
Bowles: New NASCAR Precedent Set. Why?
Massie: Can Bell Come Back From Being Wallace’s Collateral Damage?
Daniel McFadin is a 10-year veteran of the NASCAR media corp. He wrote for NBC Sports from 2015 to October 2020. He currently works full time for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and is lead reporter and an editor for Frontstretch. He is also host of the NASCAR podcast "Dropping the Hammer with Daniel McFadin" presented by Democrat-Gazette.
You can email him at danielmcfadin@gmail.com.