NASCAR explains why William Sawalich escaped a penalty

Corey Day and William Sawalich have built a history. At this point, they have a full feud going on in the NASCAR O’Reilly Series.

Two weeks ago, Day hooked Sawalich into the outside wall at Darlington Raceway. That was only the latest in a string of incidents this season.

One week later, Day missed the bottom and got into the door of Sawalich. The two drivers then made more contact off turn two.

Down the backstretch, Sawalich hooked a hard left. He sent Corey Day spinning into the inside wall. Day’s race was over as his car was destroyed.

William Sawalich retaliates on Corey Day at Gateway (Video)

Recent, in similar incidents, NASCAR has issued a penalty. However, in this case, they elected not to issue a penalty to Sawalich.

NASCAR explains that decision…

“It seems like those two have quite a history going in a rivalry. So the way the incident was viewed is that it was a door-to-door contact,” Brad Moran stated via SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.

Denny Hamlin calls on NASCAR not to penalize William Sawalich

“You know, there are a lot of things that go into what decisions we make,” Mike Forde stated via Hauler Talk.

“So I don’t know, I guess by the time this comes out, everyone will know already, but there are no penalties out of this one.”

“We are going to meet with both Corey Day and William Sawalich, as well as leadership from both those teams. That’ll be this weekend in Bristol.”

“We do plan to have a sit-down with Eric Peterson, the series director, Elton Sawyer, and potentially others on the NASCAR competition team, and have a conversation about what we expect moving forward.”

Denny Hamlin penalized after admitting to crashing Ross Chastain

“So the Chase versus non-Chase competitor in this case, we looked at the action, and the action that we saw was the 18 tried to door slam the 17, which we’ve seen hundreds of times in the 78 year history of NASCAR.”

“That, yes, did he- do we believe he tried to door slam intentionally? Sure. But it was on the straightaway. It was a self-policing move after some of the actions on the other foot, the 17 car in the previous corner, and the wreck we viewed as a result.”

“And if you look at the overhead angle there, the wreck really was a result of the 7 being at the left rear quarter panel of the 17. So if the 7 wasn’t there, in all likelihood, you don’t know, but probably the 17 doesn’t wreck there.”

“We looked at it as, you know, aggression, anger, passion.”

This weekend, the NASCAR O’Reilly Series is racing on the half-mile of Bristol Motor Speedway.

Corey Day | William Sawalich | WWT Raceway | NASCAR