One of the biggest stories last week at Phoenix Raceway was Austin Dillon and Cole Custer’s battle in the XFINITY Series.
Dillon got spun by Custer late in the race and retaliated by forcing Custer into the wall.
NASCAR announced that there wouldn’t be any penalties or fines for Dillon after the incident.
Danica Patrick weighed in on the lack of a fine to Dillon during media availability on Friday before practice at Auto Club Speedway.
Patrick knows a thing or two about on-track incidents and fines, including a fine in 2015 for retaliating against David Gilliland at Martinsville.
After Dillon didn’t get a fine, Patrick has a request for NASCAR, “Give me my money back.”
The Gilliland incident isn’t the only one that Patrick wants a refund for.
“I also got fined here last year for Kasey Kahne right-rearing me on the front straightaway at 215 miles an hour and I gave him this sign, and I got fined for that, too,” Patrick said “I think NASCAR makes a really big mistake of fining for some stuff, especially something that happens in the car because it makes for good TV – just like fights and all that stuff.
“We can handle it. I think it’s a mistake. I might be speaking too much, but I’ve been fined a few times and I think that it makes for good TV and I think that we handle it out on the track ourselves.”
It seems like Patrick might get her wish of letting the drivers have at it under the Monster Energy banner.
The question Patrick posed about the fines makes it pretty clear how she feels about that form of discipline by NASCAR.
“I mean, what does that really do?” Patrick asked. “I’m not gonna not go on vacation. I would actually rather know what it did. I would actually love to see like the playground that got built for it, or homeless people that got food. I would like to see actually what the money does for fines because it’s supposed to go to charity, right? So what does it really do? I would like to see that.”
Since 2008, all fines to drivers, crew chiefs, and teams go to the NASCAR Foundation and their initiatives.
