NASCAR Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer spoke to SiriusXM Radio on Tuesday to explain the rationale for two brake-checking penalties given to Carson Hocevar and Josh Berry over the weekend at Martinsville Speedway.
Above all, the decision to fine Hocevar $100,000 and Berry $50,000, plus 25 driver points each, was based on SMT data. NASCAR was able to see very decisively that both drivers retaliated on Sunday by braking suddenly and literally destroying the cars behind them.
In Hocevar’s case, the No. 77 Spire braked hard directly in front of Austin Cindric four times down the straight, even with spotter Tyler Green repeatedly saying “Carson stop,” with no corresponding response.
Spire Motorsports took action independent of NASCAR earlier today by suspending Hocevar for this weekend’s season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Berry braked hard once coming out of the corner in front of Ryan Blaney, which also forced the victim behind the wall, and Sawyer told Sirius Speedway host Dave Moody that this would not be tolerated.
“I think in the world we live in today, with the amount of data we can pull out of cars and go back and look at, we can make better decisions,” Sawyer said. “The only thing I would add that we’re looking at is how we can do a better job, we as NASCAR do a better job of officiating that during the race.
“We’d like to not talk about it today, we’d like to talk about going to Homestead-Miami to crown three very deserving champions, whoever they are, Friday night, Saturday or Sunday, but unfortunately we’re talking about it today. But what we’re really trying to do is get it right. And sometimes you have to wait just a little bit to get all the data and all the information to be able to do it.”
That said, Sawyer aims for NASCAR to become more capable of only real-time calls.
Sawyer explained that NASCAR took this very seriously because it was the drivers who went to the sanctioning body and asked for softer bumpers in the first place. Some wanted softer bumpers to reduce the impact drivers felt in cars. Others wanted softer front bumpers to prevent drivers from dive-bombing each other in lieu of cleaner passes.
While Hocevar and Berry used this as a weapon on Sunday, it required a response.
“We knew Martinsville would be the first test to see how they could hit and run, and that’s part of our DNA, it’s part of Martinsville,” Sawyer said. “But what really worried us was that they had taken the structure of the front of the car and used it as a joke or a strategy to ruin the other drivers’ day and so we felt we had to intervene.”
Hocevar was fined $100,000, compared to Berry’s $50,000, as Sawyer said NASCAR had numerous “behavioral meetings” with the young driver over the past few years.
“We just felt like after looking at all the data and the audio, this one had reached a level that had to exceed the 50,000 that Josh got,” Sawyer said.
Sawyer also said Spire’s decision to suspend Hocevar had no bearing on what NASCAR chose to do. It was a completely independent choice.
The obvious question after all of this is whether NASCAR has gone too far in softening the front bumpers and whether the league needs to reverse course. Sawyer said no, but covered the answer with a maybe at the same time.
“We know a lot more today than we did yesterday, and we’ll know a lot more tomorrow about this situation as it relates to the car and how we want to respond in the future,” Sawyer said. “But we’re still learning, as we’ve said many times. And this is a safety initiative that our sport has been leading for decades and it’s not a destination, it’s a journey.
“We will continue to look at the cars and what we can do to make them as safe as possible. We know that motorsport in general is inherently a dangerous sport and we want to do everything we can to make our competitors and fans as safe as possible.”
“So to get to the real point, we’re going to go back and look at that and see what adjustments we can make to the car that will also give us some of the better racing, short track racing that our fans deserve and that is a little bit of bumping and moving of the cars and tire brands – things that we’re used to loving on our short tracks. So yeah, we’ll address that as well.”
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