NASCAR insider reveals unwritten rule exposed by Ryan Preece, Kyle Busch penalty rulings

It had been a while since NASCAR last dropped a big penalty on a driver. But Ryan Preece earned one last weekend at Texas when he dumped Ty Gibbs after unleashing a rant on the radio, getting docked 25 points and fined $50,000.

According to one NASCAR insider, the incident — especially juxtaposed with Kyle Busch wrecking John Hunter Nemechek in a similar fashion in the same race — exposed one simple truth. An unwritten rule of sorts: Never admit you’re doing it.

“I think that’s the message,” said Alan Cavanna, joining The Athletic’s Jeff Gluck on The Gluckcast. “And we see drivers continually not get that message.”

Busch even came close to admitting he was going to seek retribution, saying that Nemechek “started it.” But he left it at that. He would go on to wreck the driver of the No. 42 on the white flag lap.

That he wasn’t penalized, Cavanna said, shows just how easy it is not to earn a penalty. Just don’t admit it.

“I think NASCAR is giving drivers tremendous leeway,” Cavanna said. “Look what we saw with Kyle Busch and that incident. What we all believe we saw, what we all believe happened. And yet there’s no penalty. Why? Because NASCAR’s going so far out of its way to give drivers the benefit of the doubt without just coming out and saying, ‘Hey, go do what you want.’ NASCAR’s giving them so much leeway. The only rule, it seems, is don’t say it over the radio. Don’t admit you did it.”

Cavanna noted that if you had told him after the race that NASCAR would have penalized one of the two incidents, he would have assumed it was Busch getting the penalty. That only underscores the lesson.

“When I heard the explanations, it kind of made more sense in terms of Ryan Preece calling his shot and then doing it,” Cavanna said. “I think that puts NASCAR in a very tough position when they have evidence, everyone’s heard it and you have a driver saying, ‘I’m going to go do this,’ and then it happens.

“What do you expect NASCAR to do? NASCAR can’t hear this and just let it slide. If they let it slide, then it’s just wide open, and I don’t think NASCAR should allow themselves to be undercut like that. So when a driver says they’re going to do something, everyone knows that the driver has said that and then does it… if NASCAR lets that go it’s just the wild west and they can’t let that happen. So, unfortunately, I think Ryan Preece was his own worst enemy.”

The penalty moved Preece much closer to the cut line in the Chase. He now has 273 points, only 31 points ahead of 16th-place driver Chase Briscoe. It was costly.

But while the penalty can be a lesson for Preece, it should also be a lesson for other drivers. Never admit a thing.

“Because the minute you do that you put us in this awkward position where we have to either let it go or we have to penalize you,” Cavanna said, referencing NASCAR. “And it’s much easier to just say, ‘Yeah, you did it. How do we know? Because you said you did it.’

“As long as you don’t give us the evidence, we’re going to let it go. That’s the interpretation I have from NASCAR. That’s the only rule they have to follow is don’t admit you did it and we’re not going to penalize you. And we continually see drivers not follow that one simple rule.”