John Wes Townley, who was fined $15,000 by NASCAR for his fight with Spencer Gallagher last week at Gateway Motorsports Park, issued an apology Friday morning.
“I want to apologize to NASCAR and my fans,” Townley said in a statement. “That’s not the way I want to represent myself, Zaxby’s or Jive Communications. I’ll try my best to make sure it never happens again.
“I was amazed at the comments from so many drivers who were supportive, most notably Tony Stewart.”
After his Sonoma win, Stewart said: “I’m going to go to Zaxby’s and eat chicken all week just in support of John Wes. Hey, I’m all for it. I’m glad to see somebody had some emotion and actually did something with it. I’m going to live my life through him for this week.’'
Townley was scheduled to compete in an Xfinity car this weekend at Daytona International Speedway, but the team withdrew earlier the week.
“Honestly, we went into this season with our sights sets on running strong in the Truck Series and ARCA,’' he said. “We’ve always said that. And we, as a team, don’t need to overlook those goals.
“We were getting ready to pull guys off our Truck and ARCA teams to go run an Xfinity race in Daytona. I love racing at Daytona. I’ve won there twice in ARCA.
“But considering that we have a Truck race and an ARCA race next week (at Iowa Speedway), we felt it was better to pour our time and resources into getting ready for next week.”
Gallagher previously issued an apology for his role in the incident.