NASCAR has fined racer Bubba Wallace $50,000 for ramming his car into opponent Alex Bowman’s car on purpose at Sunday’s Chicago Street Race.
During the cool-down lap, Wallace performed a jolt to the left, blasting Bowman’s car and sending him to bounce off the wall.
The incident was sparked by an earlier altercation between Bowman and Wallace when Bowman allowed himself to become distracted and ended up slamming into Wallace’s car.
But NASCAR officials did not feel that the earlier incident justified Wallace’s retaliation.
Officials cited Wallace with two violations, one of rule 4.4.B and one of 4.4.D.
In part, rule 4.4.B prohibits drivers from “intentionally damaging another vehicle,” “Wrecking or spinning another vehicle, whether or not that vehicle is removed from Competition as a result,” and “Any actions deemed to compromise the safety” of other drivers. Rule 4.4.D prohibits actions that are “detrimental to stock car racing or NASCAR.”
Still, Bowman said that he was not upset at all that Wallace later retaliated with an on-track reply to his initial collision with Wallace.
“I’d be mad, too,” Bowman said on Sunday, according to NBC Sports. “I ruined his day. The restart was chaotic. I just made every wrong decision that I possibly could. I was fighting with my windshield wiper switch trying to get it working and I couldn’t get it working. I was focused on that, missed the corner.
“I locked all four tires and just slid right into him. I just messed up and absolutely ruined his day,” Bowman continued.
“I’m pretty hard on myself when I make mistakes like that and I’ve been embarrassed about it since it happened. The rain delay was a lot of me just sitting there being embarrassed and being mad at myself,” he said. “He has every right to be mad.”
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