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Former NASCAR Driver Kyle Petty Relates Will Smith Oscar’s Slap to the Ty Gibbs-Sam Mayer Brawl, Suggesting There’s No Place for Altercations Without Consequences in Any Sport

Published 04/26/2022, 2:24 AM EDT

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After the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Martinsville, Ty Gibbs went on to Sam Mayer and punched him in the face. This led to a brawl that was subsequently cooled off, both in the moment and afterward. While many defended this altercation as ‘part of the sport’,  former NASCAR driver Kyle Petty doesn’t exactly share that opinion.

In fact, Petty thinks completely otherwise. More so after what happened at the Oscars.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’d know that Will Smith walked onto the stage at the Oscars, on live television in front of the world, and slapped comedian Chris Rock for a very minor joke, before making a fit from his seat as the world watched.

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This was something that the former NASCAR driver believes has given a free pass to everyone to do whatever they want without any real consequences.

“I don’t think much of it,” Petty said of the Ty Gibbs-Sam Mayer incident. “But I don’t think there’s a place for it.”

“Listen, it is the world we live in. When you can come out of the alley and walk on the stage at the Oscars and slap somebody, and nothing happens? Yeah, I guess it’s open game,” he continued.

“I guess you can do whatever you want to.”

NASCAR is all about the cars, not the altercations or consequences, Kyle Petty believes

Kyle Petty believes there’s no place for any kind of physical altercations in any sport. He admitted that while sports like football, rugby, and basketball are rough and tough games when someone starts throwing fists, there are consequences.

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On the other hand, the same behavior goes unpunished, more or less, in NASCAR.

USA Today via Reuters

“In NASCAR, there might not be consequences because they didn’t seem to penalize anything about throwing fists because it’s all about what they do with the cars,” Petty added.

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“So I’m not a big fan of what went up there.”

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Written by:

Shaharyar Khan Chauhan

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Shaharyar is an F1 & NASCAR writer at EssentiallySports. A graduate in Journalism from Amity University, he has been a passionate follower of motorsports for a better part of the decade. A Max Verstappen and Ferrari supporter, he dreams of a pairing of the two in future.
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