Ricky Stenhouse Jr has to pay a heavy price for starting a brawl with Kyle Busch. NASCAR hit the Cup Series driver with a hefty $75,000 fine and handed his father an indefinite suspension for jumping into the fray, following their usual stance against family members getting involved in conflicts. Also, two of Stenhouse’s JTG Daugherty Racing crew members felt the heat: mechanic Clint Myrick got an 8-race suspension, and tuner Keith Matthews was sidelined for 4 weeks.

But interestingly, Kyle Busch wasn’t fined at all for the on-track incident where he retaliated against Stenhouse Jr’s lap 1 move. The decision has ruffled some feathers, leading to calls for fairness for Stenhouse Jr. Now, Elton Sawyer has stepped forward to shed light on why NASCAR chose not to penalize Busch, sparking further discussion about the incident.

Here’s what the sanctioning body found out in the audio

In the first lap itself, Stenhouse tried pulling a three-wide move that made Kyle Busch’s car brush against the outside wall. In response, on the Lap 2 lap, Busch retaliated by deliberately nudging Stenhouse Jr’s back bumper in turn 3, causing him to crash into the wall and effectively end his race. The incident escalated into a physical altercation later on, resulting in heavy penalties for Stenhouse Jr’s crew.

But, despite Kyle Busch admitting to intentionally wrecking Stenhouse Jr on lap 2—both during their backstage confrontation and in a recent discussion with Charlie Marlow on Kenny Wallace’s show, where he stated, “I wasn’t too pleased about that and uh did come back and retaliated, showed my displeasure of that,“—NASCAR chose not to fine him.

The only loophole here is that Kyle Busch’s interview with Charlie Marlow didn’t surface until after the penalties were announced on Wednesday. The delay might explain why Busch was initially reluctant to speak to the media about the incident. Despite his silence, eagle-eyed fans criticized NASCAR for what they perceived as biased decision-making. However, shortly after the sanctions were publicized, NASCAR Vice President of Competition, Elton Sawyer, broke his silence during a Wednesday morning segment on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Sawyer explained: “If we see something, we have… proven over time that if intentionally hooking someone in the right rear and we have reacted to that. But we rarely as a sanctioning body, and we do stay out of the… the on-track incidents unless we see something that you know, blatantly comes back to us that, you know, we need to react to. In this case, we reviewed it, we looked at it, we looked at listen to audio, and again a hard racing but… also uh, truly you know appreciate where the two drivers stand on it you know go let those guys decide, and agree to disagree.”

Sawyer didn’t stop there; he also clarified why the hefty penalties were levied against Ricky Stenhouse Jr and his crew, emphasizing the seriousness with which NASCAR treats breaches of conduct.

Elton Sawyer explained why hefty penalties were levied against the #47 team and its associates

Speaking on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer said, “I think it’s fair to say that when you have crew members and family members that put their hands on our drivers, we’re going to react. There’s not a lot of detail I’m going to get into due to the fact that these are appealable penalties, and I want to make sure that we’re fair to that process. With that being said, and we’ve been consistent about this when crew members and family members get involved, we are going to react. That’s exactly what we did.”

He further pointed out that since Stenhouse was actually waiting for Busch at the #8 hauler after the race with his crew all spread out around the place, it appeared to be a premeditated decision to start trouble. After they exchanged a few words, Stenhouse quickly threw a punch that landed on the side of Busch’s face.

Sawyer added, “When you wait 198 laps and you make those decisions that were made, again, we’re going to react to that. […] Granted there was no tunnel, granted there was no crossover bridge (to allow Stenhouse Jr. to leave the track), better decisions could have been made throughout that period of time between the incident on the race track and the incident in the garage post-race.”

Do you think Elton Sawyer’s rationale for the penalties imposed on Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr is justified?