NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell slammed driver Bubba Wallace during an interview Tuesday about the crash that Wallace caused Sunday and his subsequent attack on a driver.
The incident happened during Stage 2 of the South Point 400 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when Wallace, who won Stage 1, was next to driver Kyle Larson when Larson attempted a three-wide pass.
Larson moved up the track and his car gave a slight tap to Wallace’s car, causing Wallace’s car to brush up against the wall. After brushing up against the wall, Wallace bounced into Larson’s car and then continued by tracking Larson’s car down the track and slamming into the rear of his car, causing both cars to spin out.
“Our actions are really specific to what took place on the racetrack,” O’Donnell told SiriusXM Speedway host Dave Moody. “And when we look at how that incident occurred in our minds [it was] really a dangerous act, we thought that was intentional, and put other competitors at risk. And as we look at the sport and where we are today, and where we want to draw that line going forward, we thought that definitely crossed the line. And that’s what we focused on in terms of making this call.”
When asked about how NASCAR determined that Wallace’s actions were intentional, O’Donnell said that they had a lot of data that they looked at. NBC’s on-screen telemetry of Wallace’s car “seemed to disprove Wallace’s defense” because measurements showed that Wallace was “all the way down on the gas just before hitting Larson” which the report said would “not have been expected if he did not have control of the steering,” Insider reported this week.
“We’ve got a lot of data available to us,” O’Donnell said. “And we looked at that data and kind of reviewed the incident from a bunch of different angles.”
O’Donnell said that Wallace’s actions were something that NASCAR does not want to see going forward and that fans should not try to compare NASCAR’s one-race suspension of Wallace to other past actions that NASCAR has taken.
💭 "When we look at this incident, you're not only endangering one, but there's a lot of cars out there at speed…"
🗣️ #NASCAR COO Steve O'Donnell joined #SXMSpeedway and explained the one race suspension handed down to Bubba Wallace following his actions @LVMotorSpeedway. pic.twitter.com/hnCFfDIrIj
— SiriusXM NASCAR Radio (Ch. 90) (@SiriusXMNASCAR) October 18, 2022
Wallace’s outburst sparked calls for him to be suspended or face potential criminal charges.
Hundreds of accounts on social media called out Wallace’s top sponsor, McDonald’s, and challenged the fast food company to reconsider its decision to sponsor him.