NASCAR announces penalties from Mexico City weekend

The weekend at Mexico City was pretty clean from an operational standpoint, with very few teams dinged for a penalty by the NASCAR governing body. In fact, only one team was penalized.

The No. 54 car of Joe Gibbs Racing in the Xfinity Series — Taylor Gray‘s car — was penalized. The crew was fined $5,000 for an unsecured lug nut found in a post-race inspection.

There were no other penalties stemming from the inaugural race weekend at Mexico City. A pretty clean affair.

Carson Hocevar draws plenty attention

If there was anything particularly noteworthy from the weekend at Mexico City, it was perhaps the driving of Carson Hocevar in the Cup Series. Hocevar got into it after the race with Ricky Stenhouse Jr., who got all the way up in his face.

The two had previously run afoul of each other at Michigan a few weeks back. Then it was more of the same this weekend.

Hocevar spun Stenhouse during the race at Mexico City, leading to his ire. And the driver of the No. 47 car was heated after the race, promising that he would beat Hocevar’s ass when they got back to the States.

Others say Hocevar’s act is wearing thin, with Mexico City perhaps the last straw. Kevin Harvick, for one, is on that train.

“I feel like at this point, everybody looks at it as it’s just a bunch of horseshit,” Harvick said. “They don’t trust him because it’s happened so many times over and over and over. I love the speed, but now the garage is looking for results and things to progress in the right direction, or all the rest of that talk is just irrelevant.”

Harvick also pointed out that the incidents with Hocevar, including at Mexico City, have left Stenhouse in an appreciably worse position. It is affecting his playoff contention.

“What’s crazy about that is when you talk about those points is how fast that got so far behind,” Harvick said. “That’s a race. Now they are a race behind from a points standpoint.”