During an episode of the Hauler Talk podcast, NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde addressed the organization’s response to the altercation between Carson Hocevar and Ryan Blaney at Bristol.
NASCAR will not penalize any drivers or crew members involved, but it plans to speak with Ty Gibbs, driver of the No. 54 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota.
Gibbs stood near the confrontation and watched with a grin. At one point, he threw a nearly full water bottle into the middle of the scuffle. It sailed over Hocevar’s head and struck the phone camera being held by Frontstretch reporter Michael Massie, knocking it to the ground.
Gibbs and Hocevar had been racing for the win on the final restart before Joey Logano passed both drivers as they leaned on one another. A strange exchange occurred on the cool-down lap, but it appeared Gibbs was not acting out of malice. Instead, he seemed to view the bottle toss as a joke.
“I know it was kind of a heat-of-the-moment thing, and he probably thought it was just kind of a funny thing to add to the moment,” Forde said. “He probably had some frustrations with him [Hocevar] as well. But obviously that could be dangerous if that hit someone in the wrong place. If the cap portion of that water bottle hit someone in the eye, that could be a dangerous situation. So we plan to have a conversation this weekend in Kansas with Ty Gibbs, but no penalty.”
For the sake of context, Gibbs is not the first driver to throw a water bottle into a Bristol altercation. The act may have been a nod to a famous incident from the 1990s. After being spun out during the 1995 Cup Series race at Bristol, Rusty Wallace confronted Dale Earnhardt following the event and famously threw a water bottle that struck him.
Wallace later explained that he was trying to get Earnhardt’s attention. When simply calling out “Hey, Dale” failed to stop him, Wallace hurled the bottle at him, intensifying an already heated moment. No punches were thrown after that night’s race, but the confrontation drew so much attention that it even inspired a song.
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