O'Donnell: Incident under review, but no reaction likely

Steve O'Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer, said Monday that competition officials were continuing to review Sunday's post-race conflict between Kyle Busch and Joey Logano at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but the sanctioning body is inclined "not to react" pending further video review.

O'Donnell's remarks came Monday morning in a guest appearance on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio's "Morning Drive" program.

O'Donnell said NASCAR's competition department was reviewing video footage of the incident, which stemmed from on-track contact between the two drivers' cars on the last lap of Sunday's Kobalt 400. Logano's No. 22 Ford slid into Busch's No. 18 Toyota in between Turns 3 and 4. The bump sent Busch spinning to a 22nd-place finish, while Logano drove away to place fourth.

Busch walked with purpose toward Logano after exiting his car on pit road, then lunged at his rival after reaching him. The two were pulled apart, but Busch wound up at the bottom of a pile in a scuffle with officials and crews. A NASCAR official escorted Busch, bloodied by a nick on his forehead, from the scene.

"It's certainly under review," O'Donnell said. "We have to take everything, make sure we look at all the video, but just from our in assessment last night, as far as on-track I don't think we saw anything that was intentional by any means. We have to have discussions with both drivers. I think our intention would be not to react unless we see something we haven't seen yet."

"It's an emotional sport," O'Donnell added, "and I think it shows exactly how much every position on the track means."

NASCAR officials had no immediate comment about the incident Sunday. O'Donnell also said that officials from the sanctioning body would bring Busch and Logano together for further discussions before getting back on track at Phoenix Raceway.

Asked about the possibility on punishment for crew members on Logano's No. 22 team, who jumped into the fray after Busch threw a swing, O'Donnell reinforced that NASCAR prefers to leave things in the hands of its drivers.

"What our position has been is that we want to leave it in the drivers' hands," O'Donnell said. "What we don't want to see -- and the drivers have asked for this, which is very fair -- is a crew member initially approaching a driver or initiating some type of altercation with a driver. The early review of this is, this was two drivers with crew members kind of stepping back. Once something happens, a crew is taught, which I think is right, that if someone comes up in your pit box and attacks your guy, you have the right to try and break that up or bring it to a stop. I think that was the initial review that we saw."