After seeing the news of NASCAR’s harsh penalties for the Ricky Stenhouse Jr./Kyle Busch fight, driver Daniel Suárez logged onto X and asked the same question many fans were wondering: “If it’s so wrong then why is it all over NASCAR social channels?” he wrote.
NASCAR slapped Stenhouse Jr. with a $75,000 fine — a record amount for a fight, according to penalty tracker Seth Eggert — and issued multi-race suspensions to Stenhouse’s dad (indefinite), mechanic Clint Myrick (eight races) and engine tuner Keith Matthews (four races).
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But the penalties came on the heels of NASCAR’s most viral moment of the year. Even the spectacular, all-time finishes at Kansas Speedway and Atlanta Motor Speedway this year didn’t generate this much attention for NASCAR.
The fight video was seemingly everywhere this week, with even Pat McAfee doing a play-by-play segment on his wildly popular show.
“NASCAR still has their fastball,” McAfee proclaimed.
Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fight after the All-Star Race. pic.twitter.com/IJMttBw90W
— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) May 20, 2024
One video of the fight, taken by The Athletic’s Jordan Bianchi, has been viewed 6.9 million times on X as of Wednesday morning. That’s nearly one million more viewers than the Daytona 500 got this year (although that race was postponed to a Monday).
Even spectacular finishes or violent superspeedway crashes can’t come close to the attention a fight brings for NASCAR. And its social media channels have responded accordingly.
There are currently 11 fight-related posts on NASCAR’s Instagram account, seven posts on its X account and five videos on its TikTok account. And those numbers don’t include multiple clips from Stenhouse’s appearance on the NASCAR-distributed “Stacking Pennies” podcast, in which Stenhouse posed with a WWE-style belt.
.@CoreyLaJoie: “What was your scale of mad at that point in time, 1-10?”@StenhouseJr: “11.”
A can’t-miss Stacking Pennies is available now.
Apple: https://t.co/ssOTWe1KOf
Spotify: https://t.co/8O8OwhH7iY
Web: https://t.co/6qqXQnGnoh pic.twitter.com/vc9OSAVrYg— NASCAR (@NASCAR) May 20, 2024
But for his promotional efforts, Stenhouse is now $75,000 poorer. He also loses two key crew members for multiple races, including his mechanic for nearly a quarter of the entire season, which certainly can’t help his playoff chances.
“Wow, I’m surprised by the severity of all these penalties,” Dale Earnhardt Jr. posted on X.
Of course, this is nothing new. NASCAR has often used instances like this to sell tickets and attract viewers for upcoming races — this fight will surely appear in commercials for next year’s All-Star Race — while also issuing penalties for what occurred.
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How does this happen? Ultimately, it comes down to different duties for multiple arms of NASCAR.
The social team is doing what it should: Marketing the heck out of a viral moment and using it to get as much attention as possible. Executives were probably high-fiving when the fight happened, knowing the immeasurable amount of eyeballs it would bring.
On the other hand, the competition department has to maintain some semblance of law and order within the garage. It can’t allow family, friends or crew members — many of whom are giant humans who used to play football — to assault drivers and possibly injure them. The drivers are the stars and must be protected, to a degree.
Let’s say Busch was injured in the fight as the result of a crew member breaking his hand (even unintentionally) and was forced to miss races because of it. NASCAR simply can’t afford that, so it had to send a message.
But the degree of the message is debatable here. Could NASCAR have gotten its point across with two-race suspensions for the crew members? Maybe, but perhaps officials wanted to make sure crew members didn’t even consider laying hands on a driver in the next fight.
At the same time, did NASCAR really need to fine Stenhouse? Previous fights, like the Noah Gragson/Ross Chastain incident last year at Kansas, have resulted in no penalties at all. But NASCAR has said that’s because it was in the heat of the moment after a race, whereas Stenhouse waited two hours to exact his revenge.
And NASCAR certainly officiated this instance relatively similar to others involving drivers’ fathers — who typically seem to get their hard cards pulled if they jump into an altercation.
As always, the reaction to these fights throws NASCAR into sort of a mini identity crisis. On one hand, NASCAR benefits with this sort of publicity, which recalls its rough-and-tumble grassroots. After all, a fight at the 1979 Daytona 500 is what launched NASCAR into popularity.
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On the other hand, today’s NASCAR must be clean enough to appeal to Fortune 500 companies whose boardrooms may not like the idea of investing in a sport where their corporate spokesmen engage in brawls.
Ultimately, though, NASCAR largely benefits from storylines like the one Stenhouse generated. As long as that’s the case, the awkward balance of promotion and punishment will remain.
“I hate that our media was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Barstool and ESPN are only showing the fight (instead of the race),'” Denny Hamlin said on his “Actions Detrimental” podcast Monday. “Well, yeah. We’ve gotta understand who we are.”
GO DEEPERGluck: My 2024 NASCAR Hall of Fame ballot — how I voted and why(Top photo of Ricky Stenhouse Jr.: Jeff Robinson / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Jeff Gluck has been traveling on the NASCAR beat since 2007, with stops along the way at USA Today, SB Nation, NASCAR Scene magazine and a Patreon-funded site, JeffGluck.com. He's been hosting tweetups at NASCAR tracks around the country since 2009 and was named to SI's Twitter 100 (the top 100 Twitter accounts in sports) for five straight years.
