A NASCAR executive stated Monday on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio that “there will be repercussions” for the incident between John Wes Townley and Spencer Gallagher during Saturday night’s Camping World Truck Series race at Gateway Motorsports Park.
Townley and Gallagher had contact during the race that caused Townley’s truck to hit the wall. They both wrecked in the final laps. After exiting their vehicles, they soon began scuffling, tumbling to the track and throwing a few punches.
“We’ll look at the all the video feeds we have, we certainly talked to both drivers postrace,’' said Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR executive vice president and chief racing development officer. “We’ll have our discussions. We’ll kind of have an evaluation and talk to everyone about where we stand from that. Certainly not our best moment, for sure, two passionate drivers. That’s part of things sometimes when emotions run high, but certainly don’t like to see that to occur when they’re especially on the racetrack.’'
O’Donnell told “The Morning Drive’’ that a key issue is what led to the final accident between them.
“We certainly like to see drivers who are going to express their emotions be outside of a race car, that’s where we really, really jump in and react when it’s drivers using their race cars beyond what is normal for a race,’' O’Donnell said. “We’re going to react heavily when we have to. There will still be repercussions for sure. We want to make sure drivers, if they’re going to do anything, are outside of their car but certainly don’t encourage what happened at Gateway.’'
Tony Stewart, who won Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Sonoma Raceway, said he was looking forward to how NASCAR will react to the Townley-Gallagher incident.
“I can’t wait for (the penalty announcement) because I told Mike Helton I’ve been waiting for this day for a long time to see how much you get fined for a fight,’' Stewart said, referring to the NASCAR vice chairman. “He laughed at me. I said, ‘Well, look at it this way, I’ve got a lot of scores to settle with people and I’ve only got six months to do it.’ I’ve just got to figure out if it’s economically feasible to do it, so I’m waiting to see what ‑‑ I’ll be the one by 5 p.m. on Tuesday reading every social media thing out there.
“But I’m going to go to (Townley’s sponsor) 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.’'