Retaliation in NASCAR had “gotten out of hand”

On Tuesday, NASCAR suspended fellow Cup driver Wallace from Sunday’s race at Homestead-Miami Speedway for intentionally wrecking the car of Kyle Larson during last weekend’s race at Las Vegas.

NASCAR has had to tackle several issues this season of drivers retaliating for incidences in races which they felt they were wronged.

The circumstances have varied and have included physical confrontations after races, hitting other competitor’s cars under caution or in the race itself.

Briscoe, one of the final eight drivers competing for the 2022 series championship, thinks NASCAR decided it had seen enough.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wrecked anybody on purpose so I don’t think I have to worry about the repercussions of it, but I definitely think that the penalties need to be severe,” he said.

“We’ve seen, I feel like over the last couple years, it kind of got out of hand a little bit just because I think guys have felt comfortable to do certain things and know they’re probably not going to be major repercussions.

“I think they’re trying to get the ball back in their court to where they have a little more control probably. Which I think is probably needed because it has gotten out of hand. Look at how we race at the end of these road course races, there’s just no respect a lot of times, things like that.”

‘Protect us from ourselves’

Other drivers this week have echoed similar comments.

Veteran Kevin Harvick, in a couple of Twitter posts, said NASCAR needed to “Protect us from ourselves” and indicated he had been guilty of similar actions in the past.

Briscoe, Harvick’s teammate at Stewart-Haas Racing, said a crackdown by NASCAR would be “well-received,” at least by him.

“Every (playoff) is different, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they even got more severe at times just trying to get that control back,” he said.

“It doesn’t really surprise me. It doesn’t really change how, I feel like, how I drive. There’s some guys that probably are frustrated with it because they may feel they can’t take things into their own hands as much.

“I feel fine about it. I don’t feel like it’s really going to change anything for me.”