NASCAR’s Chief Operating Officer Steve O’Donnell shared that he and everyone at NASCAR was “pissed off” over the race manipulation that took place at Martinsville last Sunday.

William Byron, Ross Chastain, Austin Dillon, and Bubba Wallace via The Daily Downforce on X

Addressing the media ahead of NASCAR’s Championship weekend at Phoenix, O’Donnell was asked by NBC Sports’ Dustin Long, “What was the message delivered to the OEMs this week about race interference after last week? And how much weight is really behind your words when Elton Sawyer said this week that there was no mechanism in the rule book to penalize them. So, if you can say something how much weight—? What did you say and how much weight is behind your actual words to the OEMs?”

O’Donnell responded, “Let’s go back to what just happened in Martinsville. I would argue before what we saw, one of the best races, again, I’ve seen in the playoffs. And it’s unbelievable that we’re sitting here talking about this topic, right? And I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I’ll say it anyway, I’ve been around a long time. You know, Bill France used to say being pissed off is not a plan. What I saw in Martinsville pissed me off and it pissed everyone off at NASCAR.”

He explained, “Because we all know better. And we know what happened. So we do have rules in the rule book where we can address it and we did. We had a call with our OEMs where we were very clear in what our intentions are going forward. It is true, Dustin, do we have a rule right now where we could do something? We don’t. Will we have a rule next year? 1,000% and they’re aware of that. And they’re aware if anything happens this weekend, which it won’t, but we will react.”

Christopher Bell passes Bubba Wallace on the final lap of the NASCAR Cup Series Race at Martinsville in November 2024.

Next, he said, “And then we have a meeting with our drivers on Saturday. The reason we chose not to penalize the drivers, I’ll just address that now because we’ve seen that a lot as well. We made the decision that the drivers are holding the wheel, but the drivers were told essentially what to do. We gave them the benefit of the doubt. Saturday’s message from Elton and John to the drivers will be that, ‘That’s your warning. We know what happened and going forward we’ll have to penalize you as well.'”

From there, O’Donnell addressed what weight his words will have, “But what do our words mean? We’re not going to let people, drivers, teams, anyone, OEMs challenge the integrity of the sport.”

William Byron, Ross Chastain, and Austin Dillon via The Daily Downforce on X

Despite the claim of being pissed off, NASCAR only penalized Austin Dillon, Ross Chastain, Bubba Wallace and their teams. They did not penalize the beneficiaries of the race manipulation which included William Byron, Christopher Bell, and their teams.

What do you make of O’Donnell’s comments?

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