NASCAR finally delivered its verdict on the Busch-Stenhouse face-off. But people are not too pleased, quoting a glaring display of hypocrisy on the sanctioning body’s part. The All-Star Race brawl was wildly advertised on social media, but now the main character of the show is being punished.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr got mad after Kyle Busch spun him out of the All-Star race at North Wilkesboro. The #47 driver let his anger boil, and when Busch got back to his hauler post-race, Stenhouse, who was waiting for Busch with his crew, let his fists fly. NASCAR, however, ignored the first part of the story, and overly focused on the second. This is triggering a huge backlash from prominent voices of the sport.

Veteran accuses NASCAR’s two-faced tactics against Ricky Stenhouse Jr

Sure. Kenny Wallace may have never clinched a Cup victory in his 344 starts. But his in-depth and at times controversial analysis of the NASCAR premier series is on-point. His weekly videos are peppered with humorous content in line with his happy-go-lucky personality. But this time Wallace was far from happy.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s gloomy fate elicited an uproar from fans and Dale Earnhardt Jr. After the brawl, officials wildly trumpeted the incident on all social media channels, cashing on fan engagement. But then they slapped $75,000 on the man of the show, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Kenny Wallace, thus, heavily criticized this aspect.

He jumped on the protest bandwagon and lent his thoughts on the fiasco. The 60-year-old explained, “My opinion is a strong one. NASCAR cannot promote and advertise that punch thrown if they’re going to fine you. So in other words, they take everything to do with that fight…and promote the hell out of it. They use it all as promotional material, then they fine the man that gave them all the promotional material. That ain’t right.”

Then Wallace suggested a complete reversal of the scenario in Ricky Stenhouse Jr’s favor. “It’s the opposite. NASCAR should pay Ricky Stenhouse $75,000. No, I’m serious. You cannot have it both. You cannot fine Ricky Stenhouse and use everything he did to promote your sport,” Wallace opined strongly.

Kenny Wallace’s strong opinion has a strong point to it, given Ricky Stenhouse Jr breathed life into an otherwise sleepy race. As it turns out, the ripples of NASCAR’s penalty have reached further.

Fellow Cup driver scrutinizes NASCAR’s hypocrisy

Granted, NASCAR has elaborate rules in place to regulate rowdy drivers in post-race brawls. Given that Ricky Stenhouse Jr waited out the whole race to pounce on Kyle Busch, a premeditated flavor emerges. Elton Sawyer explained as much: “We looked at all the audio and video from the incident on Sunday night. At this point, that’s all I’m gonna comment on the penalties. … When you wait 198 laps and you make those decisions that were made, again, we’re going to react to that.”

Yet the fact remains that the same officials used the brawl video to hike engagement. Besides Kenny Wallace’s concerns, Trackhouse Racing driver Daniel Suarez also showed disbelief about NASCAR’s severe penalties. Suarez tweeted: “If it’s so wrong then why is it all over NASCAR social channels? We should be allowed to show our emotions, I don’t get it…”

Quote-posting Suarez’s tweet, ESPN senior writer Ryan McGee also echoed similar sentiments. He questioned, “This isn’t wrong. Do you fine a guy for the video you’re 100% going to use to promote next year’s All-Star Race?”

This backlash will hopefully provoke NASCAR to roll back its severe penalties for the Stenhouse party a bit. But what do you think? Was the penalty on Ricky Jr justified?