Female NASCAR broadcaster slammed over Ryan Blaney and Carson Hocevar coverage and mistake

19:38 ET, Thu, Sep 24, 2026 Updated: 19:41 ET, Thu, Sep 24, 2026

Wendy Venturini was slammed for her covergae (Image: Getty)

SiriusXM NASCAR Radio broadcaster Wendy Venturini has faced online backlash after her live reporting of the post-race brawl between Carson Hocevar and Ryan Blaney at Bristol Motor Speedway contained multiple factual errors.

The fight erupted after Saturday night's NASCAR race, when a late-race incident with Hocevar derailed Blaney's hopes. With 43 laps remaining, the two were battling for second place when Blaney moved to block Hocevar's inside line.

Hocevar, who has seen fellow NASCAR drivers turn on him after the fight, refused to back off, making contact that sent Blaney's car spinning into the wall. Hocevar went on to finish third, while Blaney was classified 33rd, dropping him to sixth in the Chase standings.

Furious after exiting his car, Blaney confronted Hocevar on pit road and grabbed him, prompting Hocevar to respond with two right hooks. Blaney was pulled back and fell to the ground during the scuffle, while Hocevar remained upright throughout.

In her live account of the incident, Venturini referred to Blaney as "Ryan Newman" at one point, despite Newman having been retired from full-time Cup Series competition since 2023 and not even being present at Bristol that night.

She also stated that Hocevar was the one who ended up on the ground during the altercation, which video evidence contradicted, as it was Blaney who fell after being pulled back by another individual at the scene.

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The backlash prompted some fans to scrutinize Venturini's broader career and family background in the sport.

Venturini is the daughter of Bill Venturini, a two-time ARCA champion and team owner, and her mother served as the front-tire changer for his car as part of the first all-female pit crew in professional racing history in 1987.

The Venturini family's racing team, Venturini Racing, has helped launch the careers of Cup Series stars including Joey Logano, Christopher Bell, and William Byron. Despite that pedigree, some critics framed her position in the sport as a product of nepotism rather than merit.

Venturini has a substantial broadcasting résumé of her own, having become the first female play-by-play announcer in auto racing history during DirecTV's NASCAR Hot Pass coverage in 2007, and later becoming the first woman to anchor a NASCAR Cup Series race broadcast when she called the 2014 Sylvania 300 for the Performance Racing Network.

Despite the criticism over Venturini's reporting, the fight itself is not expected to result in penalties for either driver.

NASCAR has signaled a broader shift under new CEO Steve O'Donnell toward tolerating on-track and pit-road confrontations as part of an effort to showcase more raw personality in the sport. "Don't use your car as a weapon," O'Donnell said following the incident. "Drivers need to handle their business outside of the car. We're not going to encourage fighting, but what we are going to encourage is passion."