Chris Buescher, who was eliminated from NASCAR Cup Series Playoff contention Sunday at Darlington Raceway, will not receive added insult to injury in the form of penalties this week. Buescher was involved in an incident with Todd Gilliland on Lap 323 of the Cook Out Southern 500, where Gilliland ran Buescher high into the wall, and then Buescher swiped back down off of the wall, which turned Gilliland.
Here is a video of the incident in question:
OH BOY. ?
? : #NASCAR | USA Network pic.twitter.com/Snjs1g0Qam
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During a Tuesday morning interview on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio’s The Morning Drive, NASCAR’s Senior Vice President of Competition Elton Sawyer confirmed there would be no sanctions coming to Buescher in the aftermath of Darlington Raceway.
“Not anything,” Sawyer said when asked if there would be penalties. “You look at Darlington, it’s tight. It’s hard racing, we’ve said that for years.”
Sawyer continued, “I don’t want our fans to get in a position thinking that we’re going to be over-officiating our races, as far as contact. We’re a contact sport, it’s in our DNA. What happened at Richmond, happened at Richmond, and we responded to that. We want our racing to be organic, we want them to go out and race hard, so we didn’t see anything that crossed the line.”
Buescher would go on to finish sixth in Sunday’s Southern 500 at Darlington, but with Chase Briscoe taking the win, Buescher found himself six points below Martin Truex Jr., who was the last driver to advance into the Playoffs by way of points.
Gilliland would finish 17th following the incident late in Sunday’s race.
