NASCAR did not penalize Shane van Gisbergen and Austin Hill for their incident at Chicagoland, and fans are upset. Fans believe the decision runs contrary to NASCAR’s earlier penalty for Ryan Preece in a similar situation.
Van Gisbergen wrecked Hill early into Sunday’s eero 400. Both Hill and his team owner, Richard Childress, weren’t happy with SVG.
Hill parked his mangled car in the garage, but not before dooring SVG’s No. 97 Chevy under caution. NASCAR looked at both incidents but did not take action.
The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck shared the ruling on X.
“NO penalties for anything related to SVG/Austin Hill or Smith/Hocevar. Game on,” he wrote.
Disgruntled fans replied in the comments section:
NASCAR reporter Steven Taranto shared his stance on the whole ordeal.
“As far as no penalty for Hill dooring SVG under yellow in retaliation, it sounds like that was viewed just as an emotion thing (And apparently, [Elton] Sawyer said “I would’ve done the same thing 30 years ago when I was a driver.”)”
Taranto mentioned that the sanctioning body found evidence that it was an intentional wreck by Shane van Gisbergen, citing SMT data and radio transmissions.
Ryan Preece was previously penalized for intentionally wrecking Ty Gibbs at Texas Motor Speedway. He was fined $50,000 and docked 25 points for the incident. The smoking gun was apparently Preece’s radio message before touching Gibbs, where he criticized the JGR driver for driving erratically.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. backs NASCAR’s decision on Shane van Gisbergen-Austin Hill incident
Dale Earnhardt Jr. shared his take on Shane van Gisbergen’s run-in with Austin Hill. On the latest episode of Dale Jr. Download, the veteran explained how it’s easy to implicate SVG without proper due process.
“For whatever reason and I’m sure there’s a good one, Nascar won’t assume. NASCAR will only act when they’ve got factual evidence or an admittance of guilt.”
Shane van Gisbergen, on his part, maintained that he didn’t mean to take out Austin Hill and apologized to the team.
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