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NASCAR dishes out $600,000 in fines, suspends 9 over race manipulation
Charlotte, N.C. — NASCAR issued $600,000 in fines and suspended nine team members from three different teams on Tuesday for alleged race manipulation at Martinsville Speedway.
The penalties came down after a contentious final battle Sunday at the Virginia track in which Christopher Bell initially qualified for the championship final four but his move to hit the wall and use it for momentum violated a banned safety rule and was disallowed.
That gave the final spot in this week’s winner-take-all finale at Phoenix Raceway to William Byron.
The race itself was won by Ryan Blanely.
Chuck Burton / AP
But, NASCAR was clear in disqualifying Bell that it would take a hard look at the actions other drivers played in the sequence of events as Bell and Byron battled for the final spot in the championship flat.
In the case of Bell, NASCAR determined fellow Toyota driver Bubba Wallace faked a flat tire in order to give Bell the leeway to move out of the way and hit the wall.
In the case of Byron, NASCAR ruled that Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon both ran interference to help fellow Chevrolet driver Byron not lose any position on the track that would cost him a spot in the championship.
Elton Sawyer, NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition, said the sanctioning body considered suspending the drivers as well as taking action against manufacturers Chevrolet and Toyota. He said there was nothing in the rulebook that would call for the manufacturers to be punished, but NASCAR planned to meet with the leaders of Ford, Chevy and Toyota to discuss the situation.
Because the penalties were issued the week of the season finale, the teams have until Wednesday afternoon to ask for an expedited appeal. The appeals would likely be heard Thursday.
Trackhouse Racing, which fields Chastain’s Chevy, said it would appeal, as did 23XI for the Wallace’s Toyota.
“We feel strongly that we did not commit any violations during Sunday’s race,” 23XI said in a statement.”
The team is currently embroiled in a lawsuit against NASCAR over the charter system and has Tyler Reddick racing Sunday for the Cup Series title.
The penalties that were issued
A $100,000 fine for Chastain, a $100,000 fine for Trackhouse, and one-race suspensions for team executive Tony Lunders, crew chief Philip Surgen and spotter Brandon McReynolds. Chastain is the defending race winner at Phoenix. The team also lost 50 points.
Dillon was fined $100,000, as was Richard Childress Racing. One-race suspensions were given to team executive Keith Rodden, crew chief Justin Alexander and spotter Brandon Benesch. The team also lost 50 points. Richard Childress Racing also said it would appeal.
Wallace was fined $100,000, as was 23XI. The one-race suspensions went to team executive Dave Rogers, crew chief Robert Barker and spotter Freddie Kraft. The team also lost 50 points.
Sawyer had said Sunday that NASCAR would review the Martinsville finish to see if there was indeed any race manipulation with rival drivers helping others that are aligned with the same manufacturer.
But he said he hoped the penalties were harsh enough to curb the manufacturer alliances and race manipulation.
“We took and looked at the most recent penalty that we had written for an infraction very similar… we wanted to ramp this one up,” Sawyer said, “and we did. We did that in a way that included team leadership and this is something that we felt like we wanted to get our point across that it is a responsibility of all of us…. to uphold the integrity of the sport.”
Donald Trump’s projected victory at the polls is giving a fresh boost to stocks.
Dow futures soared nearly 1,400 points, or 3.2%, lifting the blue-chip market into record terrain before the start of trade on Wednesday. S&P 500 futures were up more than 2%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also looked set to open strong.
Cryptocurrency is also surging as investors bet that the second Trump administration will benefit the volatile sector. Bitcoin prices rose nearly 8% to a record $75,345.00 in early trading, before dipping to about $73,500.
The former president, who was once critical of digital currencies, pledged during his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the planet” and to create a bitcoin “strategic reserve.”
“Bitcoin is the one asset that was always going to soar if Trump returned to the White House,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, a British online investment platform.
“Trump has already declared his love of the digital currency and crypto traders now have a new narrative by which to get even more excited about where the price could go,” he added.
The Republican Party’s electoral success on Tuesday, which included winning control of the Senate, is also benefiting Trump’s personal finances by boosting the stock price of Trump Media & Technology Group. Shares in the company, which owns the social network Truth Social and in which Trump owns a stake valued at more than $5 billion, jumped nearly 38% to $46.80 before markets opened.
Although markets have pushed to new highs this year, Wall Street analysts warn that some of Trump’s key policy proposals could rekindle U.S. inflation, dampen economic growth and drive up the nation’s debts.
The Federal Reserve will offer its latest readout on the state of the economy on Thursday, with Wall Street analysts expecting the central bank to lower its benchmark interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point. The Fed in September dropped borrowing costs by 0.50 percentage points, its first cut since 2020.
contributed to this report.
San Juan, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Rafael swelled into a Category 2 storm early Wednesday as it swirled past the Cayman Islands, and it was forecast to rapidly intensify before making landfall later in the day in western Cuba. It was another stroke of bad news for Cuba, which has been struggling with blackouts while recovering from another hurricane two weeks ago that killed at least six people in the eastern part of the island.
The storm was located about 90 miles east-southeast of the Isle of Youth, and around 160 miles south-southeast of Havana as of 7 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday. Packing maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, Rafael had become a Category 2 storm.
It was moving northwest at 14 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Forecasters warned that Rafael was expected to slam into Cuba on Wednesday after dumping rain on Jamaica and the Cayman Islands on Tuesday. The center warned of floods, storm surges and mudslides.
NOAA/National Hurricane Center
The U.S. State Department issued an advisory for Cuba on Tuesday afternoon, offering departure flights to non-essential staff and American citizens, and advising others to “reconsider travel to Cuba due to the potential impact of Tropical Storm Rafael,” before the storm grew into a hurricane.
On Tuesday morning, the Cuban Civil Defense called on Cubans to prepare as soon as possible, because when the storm makes landfall “it’s important to stay where you are.” The day before, authorities said they had issued an evacuation order for 37,000 people in far eastern Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, due to bad weather.
A hurricane warning that had been in effect Tuesday for the Cayman Islands was dropped for the biggest of the islands Wednesday. The measure remained in effect for Little Cayman and Cayman Brac, along with the Cuban provinces of Pinar del Rio, Artemisa, La Habana, Mayabeque, Matanzas, and the Isle of Youth.
NOAA/National Hurricane Center
A tropical storm warning was in effect for a handful of other Cuban provinces, as well as the lower and middle Florida Keys from Key West to west of the Channel 5 Bridge, and Dry Tortugas. The warning was lifted in Jamaica after the storm passed by the western coast.
Rafael on Tuesday knocked out power in Jamaica and unleashed flooding and landslides.
The Jamaica Public Service, the island’s electricity provider, said in a statement late Tuesday that impassable roads were preventing crews from restoring power in some areas.
Meanwhile, crews in Little Cayman and Cayman Brac were expected to fan out early Wednesday to assess damage after a direct hit late Tuesday. Power outages were reported across the Cayman Islands, and schools remained closed on Wednesday.
“While conditions have improved on Grand Cayman, residents are advised to exercise extreme caution on the roads and near coastlines as rough seas and residual flooding risks may persist,” the government said in a statement.
Forecasters warned Rafael would unleash heavy rains across the western Caribbean that could lead to flooding and mudslides in parts of Cuba and the Cayman Islands.
YAMIL LAGE/AFP/Getty
Heavy rainfall also was expected to spread north into Florida and nearby areas of the southeast U.S. during the middle to late part of the week. The Hurricane Center predicted storm surges in Florida could reach 1 to 3 feet in Dry Tortugas and 1 to 2 feet in the Lower Florida Keys. A few tornadoes also were expected Wednesday over the Keys and southwestern Florida.
Rafael is the 17th named storm of the season.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted the 2024 hurricane season was likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast called for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.
An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.
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“Narco sub” carrying 8,000 pounds of cocaine intercepted in Pacific Ocean, Mexican Navy says
The Mexican Navy said Tuesday it has seized 3.6 tons (about 8,000 pounds) of cocaine aboard a “narco sub” off the Pacific coast which was spotted earlier this week about 153 miles off the resort of Acapulco.
Navy ships arrived to intercept the boat, which was carrying 102 packages filled with bricks of cocaine, authorities said in a news release.
The craft, of a type known as “go-fast boats,” was powered by two outboard motors and appeared to be a low-profile, semi-submersible craft — commonly known as a “narco sub” — designed to make detection more difficult.
Aboard the craft, the Navy detained nine crew members, six of whom were foreigners. The Navy did not specify their nationalities, but many of the boats found off Mexico have Colombian or Venezuelan crew members.
Officials released an image of numbered packages containing the cocaine flanked by two naval ships.
Mexican Navy
Cocaine is produced in South America and is usually shipped through the Pacific or the Caribbean to reach the U.S. market.
The seizure comes just weeks after the Mexican navy announced it had seized more than 8.3 tons of drugs in the Pacific Ocean, a record for a single operation at sea. The cargo was intercepted from six different vessels, including a “narco sub” that held about 4,800 pounds of narcotics.
The Navy said Tuesday that more than 15,000 kilograms of alleged drugs have been seized at sea under the current administration.
Earlier this year, Mexico’s Navy seized more than seven tons of suspected cocaine in two separate raids in the Pacific Ocean, and dramatic video captured the high-speed chases on the open sea.
In September, the U.S. Coast Guard said that it had offloaded more than $54 million worth of cocaine — including over 1,200 pounds of drugs that were seized from a “narco sub.”
Semi-submersibles, which cannot go fully underwater, are popular among international drug traffickers as they can sometimes elude detection by law enforcement. The vessels are sometimes seized in Colombian waters while heading to the United States, Central America and Europe. Earlier this summer, the Colombian Navy said it seized two “narco subs” off the country’s Pacific coast that together contained almost 5 tons of cocaine.
