NASCAR has confirmed that it will not penalize Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for their post-race conflict at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
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That doesn't mean the situation is over. Officials will meet with the two drivers ahead of this weekend's race at Phoenix Raceway to ensure that the situation does not escalate and that cars are no longer used as weapons.
The situation occurred last weekend at Charlotte Motor Speedway after Chase Briscoe won his second consecutive Chase race. As drivers circled the track on the cooldown lap, Stenhouse raced up next to McDowell and door-slammed the No. 71 multiple times.
McDowell did not let the incident end there. He hit Stenhouse from behind multiple times before ultimately spinning the No. 47. Once they returned to pit road, Stenhouse went over to McDowell, and they had a conversation before parting ways.
This cool-down lap was anything but calm. @StenhouseJr and @Mc_Driver make contact. pic.twitter.com/dVplQ78aTf
— NASCAR (@NASCAR) October 11, 2026
"We did review it today in our debrief and yesterday," Mike Forde, VP of Racing Communications, said on the newest episode of Hauler Talk. "So Scott Miller (SVP of Competition), as part of his remote race control, he gathers the data and the video review.
"So we went through a number of different videos from the in-car cameras from both, not only the 47 and the 71, but the 35 was right behind there, the overhead angle from the blimp cam and did talk about it."
Forde continued and said that they had quite a bit of discussion about whether to penalize the two drivers. He noted that it was "the closest" it got to being a penalty without actually becoming one.
"The 71, neither the 71 or 47 hit a wall. They both had their window nets up," Forde continued. "So we did look at other past instances of this type of behavior. And you talk about trying to be consistent."
The other prominent example that Forde pointed to occurred after the 2024 Chicago Street Race. Bubba Wallace door-slammed race-winner Alex Bowman and knocked him into the wall. This drew a $50,000 fine.
"That we did look a little bit differently," Forde said. "Bowman had his net down already. He did hit the wall after, so it was the collision of a door hit and then hit in the wall with the window net down.
"So we didn't, at that time, we didn't love it. So we did, we looked at different types of examples of when we, of what we did in the past in these types of instances. Decided that it was close, but did not fully rise to necessitating a penalty."
Both drivers avoided the penalties, but they earned a sitdown with NASCAR officials. Though Stenhouse has since explained that he believes the situation is behind them.
Speaking with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio, Stenhouse said that he and McDowell both had frustrating races due to their pit stalls and being blocked in. He then said that McDowell was blocking him on every run and that one instance led to him being put in the grass.
Stenhouse said that McDowell was partially apologetic for the in-race incidents but that they didn't see eye-to-eye on all of them.
"Him and I were on the same kickball team Thursday night, had no issues," Stenhouse said while addressing the post-race clash. "We had the conversation; we'll move on no problem."
