France on Texas tussle: 'Welcome to big-time sports with big moments'
No one should have been surprised by the penalties — or lack thereof — that were announced Tuesday by NASCAR regarding last Sunday's wild finish and post-race brawl at Texas Motor Speedway.
NASCAR Chairman and CEO Brian France had said Tuesday afternoon in an interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that the sanctioning body was prepared to dole out some "harsh punishments" for those involved. But in the same interview, France let it be known that he had no particular problem with the actions of drivers Jeff Gordon and Brad Keselowski, the key participants in the incident.
France's real problem obviously was with the crews of the two drivers — as well as the crews from two other teams — who inserted themselves into the situation and appeared to help escalate the level of chaos. One crew member from driver Kasey Kahne's team, for instance, can be seen on video attempting to pummel Keselowski with both of his fists.
"We don't have dugouts or sidelines," France said in the SiriusXM interview. "The drivers often are parked in the garage, next to one another. ... It's not uncommon at all for someone to express how they feel, with a lot of emotion sometimes. We're good with that, we understand that's part of the game. But there is a line. When things escalate to the level that they did, or anything close to what happened Sunday, we will step in and deal with that very carefully."
That is precisely what NASCAR did later Tuesday evening, fining Gordon crew chief Alan Gustafson and Kahne crew chief Kenny Francis $50,000 each and placing both on probation for six races because "the crew chief assumes responsibility for the actions of his team members."
NASCAR also suspended three Hendrick Motorsports crew members for six races for "being involved in a post-race physical altercation" and fined them each $25,000. A fourth Hendrick crew member was fined $10,000 and suspended for three races for the same offense.
Neither Gordon nor Keselowski was penalized, which wasn't suprising considering the comments France had made earlier on SiriusXM. During that interview, France made it very clear that he had no problem whatsoever with the move on the track that Keselowski made to ignite the anger of Gordon.
The move occurred on a restart on a green-white-checkered finish when Keselowski tried to wedge his No. 2 Team Penske Ford through an opening between the cars of Gordon and race leader Jimmie Johnson. Keselowski and Gordon made contact, cutting the left rear tire of Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet. The tire almost immediately went flat, causing Gordon to spin, eventually relegating him to a 29th-place finish shortly after he had been battling for the race lead.
"Quite frankly, he did exactly what I would expect any driver with that much on the line to do," France said in his radio interview of Keselowski. "He was looking at an opportunity to shoot a gap, if you will. It was unfortunate they touched and Gordon's tire obviously got cut, which was very unfortunate, but the idea is, that late in the race, things are going to happen when guys are legitimately trying to win races."
France went on to say that Keselowski's move, and the emotional reactions that it caused, were simply the byproducts of NASCAR's new Chase for the Sprint Cup elimination format that is in its first year of existence.
"Welcome to big-time sports with big moments," France said.
Meanwhile, the folks at Hendrick Motorsports didn't necessarily agree. While the organization said it would not appeal the fines or penalties, Hendrick General Manager Doug Duchardt made a Wednesday appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio and said that the organization will be paying all the fines NASCAR levied against its employees. The total bill: $185,000.
"We will as a team incur that and we won't put that on the crew members," Duchardt said. "We just have to pay the penalties and move on and hopefully we won't find ourselves in that situation again."
VIDEO: Brad Keselowski makes new enemies racing hard at Texas
