Ricky Stenhouse Sr. reinstated from NASCAR suspension following Kyle Busch fight
Ricky Stenhouse Sr., who was suspended from NASCAR after the Kyle Busch fight at the All-Star race, has been reinstated, according to Bob Pockrass of Fox Sports. The father of Ricky Stenhouse Jr. can now be in the garage and pits during race weekends.
The fight started when Stenhouse Jr. threw a punch at Busch after the race at North Wilkesboro Speedway in May. That led to Stenhouse Sr. jumping in and throwing a punch at Busch as well. While appearing on the Stacking Pennies podcast with Corey LaJoie shortly after the incident, Stenhouse Jr. said his dad just “likes to fight.”
“Dirt racer from back home. I saw him and I was just making sure everybody wasn’t gonna [pummel him] or each other,” he said. “And it looked like all the crew guys were grabbing each other, him included. Just grabbing each other.”
Along with Stenhouse Sr.’s suspension, his son was fined $75,000 and two crew members were suspended. “I think it’s fair to say that when you have crew members and family members that put their hands on our drivers, we’re going to react,” NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer said at the time, per NASCAR.com.
More on Ricky Stenhouse Sr.’s suspension
“There’s not a lot of detail I’m going to get into due to the fact that these are appealable penalties, and I want to make sure that we’re fair to that process. With that being said, and we’ve been consistent about this, when crew members and family members get involved, we are going to react. That’s exactly what we did.”
Sawyer added: When you wait 198 laps and you make those decisions that were made, again, we’re going to react to that. … Once we get to the point where it gets physical, we want the two drivers to be able to have time to express their differences. Once it escalates to a physical altercation, we are going to react.”
“Granted there was no tunnel, granted there was no crossover bridge (to allow Stenhouse Jr. to leave the track), better decisions could have been made throughout that period of time between the incident on the race track and the incident in the garage post-race.”
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. did not reach the playoffs this year as he didn’t win a race during the regular season and did not have enough points to make the top 16. On Saturday, Stenhouse finished 27th at Bristol Motor Speedway.