NASCAR decided not to penalize anyone involved in the Carson Hocevar/Ryan Blaney post-race brawl on Saturday night at Bristol Motor Speedway. However, one insider is calling on NASCAR to punish someone who had a subtle hand in the melee from the Cup Series Bass Pro Shops Night Race.
In the middle of the post-race fight, Ty Gibbs watched along as the chaos unfolded. At one point, the driver of the No. 54 chucked a plastic water bottle into the center of the pile. The water bottle ended up hitting the phone of Frontstretch reporter Michael Massie, who was videoing the fight.
Massie’s phone ended up smacking the ground as a result.
Insider believes Ty Gibbs should be punished
On a recent episode of the “Motorsport Today” podcast, journalist Eddie Kalegi appeared as a guest and weighed in on the Gibbs water bottle toss. While Kalegi described the action as humorous, he believes NASCAR should hold the grandson of car owner Joe Gibbs accountable.
With everyone on-scene focused on the fight, Kalegi said throwing objects into the scrum opens the door for someone to be injured.
“It’s a funny video but you cannot have your drivers throwing objects recklessly into a crowd when everybody is paying attention to the fight and nobody has any sort of self-defense,” Kalegi said.
Some speculated that Massie might have been injured in the incident. However, the reporter took to social media to assure those were worried that he was OK and explained what happened.
“My phone has been blowing up since last night with a lot of people asking how I’m doing. I’m perfectly fine. I didn’t fall to the ground or anything. It just looks like that because @TyGibbs water bottle knocked the phone out of my hand,” he wrote.
Although Massie’s phone suffered some damage, he was not concerned about it.
“The phone has a few scratches but it’s ok. Thanks to all who reached out and sorry if I scared anyone! Y’all made me feel loved ❤️,” he wrote.
Ty Gibbs posted strong run at Bristol
Piloting the No. 54 M&M’s paint scheme dedicated to the late Kyle Busch, Ty Gibbs narrowly missed out on a storybook ending to the Bass Pro Shops Night Race at Bristol Motor Speedway.
The 23-year-old paced the field for 120 of 500 laps and was in contention in the closing laps to complete the Bristol sweep. Unfortunately for the North Carolina native, he was not able to replicate what he did in the April Food City 500.
On the last green flag sprint to the finish, Joey Logano got the better of Gibbs, Hocevar and Kyle Larson in a 4-man fight for the lead to win the race.
Gibbs wound up placing fifth in another strong points race for the former O’Reilly Auto Parts Series champion. With seven races remaining in the Chase, Gibbs ranks fifth in the standings, 42 points behind leader Larson.