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Why NASCAR is not penalizing Stenhouse, McDowell for post-race theatrics

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The Sanctioning Body will meet with both drivers on Saturday morning at Phoenix

NASCAR typically issues penalties reports by the end of business day on Tuesday but no later than Wednesday.

There has been nothing issued thus far and nothing is coming.

In other words, there were no technical infractions to deal with following the race weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway but also no punitive actions against Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Michael McDowell for their post-race incident during the cool down lap on Sunday afternoon.

Speaking on the latest episode of the ‘Hauler Talk’ podcast, NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde explained why there were no penalties issued to Stenhouse and McDowell.

“It was a lengthy discussion, and there was a lot of discussion on whether we do penalize, whether we don’t,” said Forde. “A long story short, we are not penalizing.

“We are not penalizing the 71 or the 47 for the post-race incident on the cooldown lap. And I would probably say that this is probably the closest it’s gotten to being a penalty without it being a penalty.”

NASCAR had previously penalized Bubba Wallace $50,000 for dooring Alex Bowman into the wall during the cool down lap in Downtown Chicago in 2025. But Bowman had started to unbuckle his belts and was squeezed into the wall.

“We looked at it as emotion again,” Forde said. “And I think they came down pit road, and Stenhouse went to the window and had a conversation. It cooled down pretty quickly. Neither the 71 or 47 hit a wall. They both had their window nets up. So we did look at other past instances of this type of behavior.

“You talk about trying to be consistent. And the one example that we did penalize involved Bubba Wallace and Alex Bowman. Bubba did hit Bowman during the cooldown lap and did end up getting a penalty. It was a fine. That we did look a little bit differently.

“Bowman had his net down already. He did hit the wall after. So it was the collision of a door hit and then hitting the wall with the window net down.

“At that time, we didn’t love it. So we did we looked at different types of examples of when of what we did in the past in these types of instances. Decided that it was close but did not fully rise to necessitating a penalty.”

NASCAR is going to meet with both drivers before practice and qualifying on Saturday at Phoenix Raceway.

“If we were to penalize, the lean was if we were to penalize it would be to both drivers. Decided not to do that,” Forde said. “We are going to have a discussion with them. We’re going to bring them into the hauler this weekend to talk with them.

“We didn’t love the behavior from either of them. The 71 spinning (Stenhouse) out like that is not great by any means. We just didn’t feel like it rose to that level.”