NASCAR insider evaluates whether Kyle Busch, John Hunter Nemecheck contact will be penalized

Coming off the weekend at Texas Motor Speedway, all eyes in the sport were on Kyle Busch and John Hunter Nemechek. The former appeared to aggressively contact the latter, pushing him into the wall at the end of the race on the white flag lap.

Both drivers finished worse for the wear. After the race, John Hunter Nemechek expressed his displeasure with Kyle Busch.

And Busch attempted to defend himself, saying he was simply holding his line. Who was in the wrong? That’s a question NASCAR may look into, according to FOX Sports insider Bob Pockrass.

“I think the question is how does NASCAR look at that frustration,” Pockrass said. “They do say this is a contact sport. They do say that, you know, if you get bumped you can bump somebody back. And Kyle Busch felt like he got bumped. He felt like he held his line according to what he posted on social media.

“And then obviously it looked like they called it a hip check. It wasn’t a right hook, but still was some pretty solid contact. I don’t know how NASCAR will look at it. Wouldn’t be surprised if there isn’t a penalty, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if there was one.”

For his part, Kyle Busch seemed to express some frustration with Nemechek’s driving. He said he didn’t start the incident.

“The 42 apparently doesn’t know where the RS of his car is and where he is in relation to the outside wall,” Busch wrote on Twitter. “There was 2 ft outside him, and I was judging my left side tires to the hash marks. Always know who you’re racing beside.”

Nemechek exclaimed, of Kyle Busch, “what an ass.” He was clearly frustrated with the contact.

Pockrass once more walked through the incident, outlining what happened and how it played out for both drivers. And now we wait to see if NASCAR will get involved.

“I think we’re going to be talking about Kyle Busch and John Hunter Nemechek there at the end,” Pockrass said. “Kyle Busch tries to, at first it looked like he was trying to cut in front of John Hunter Nemechek, they have contact and then they also have contact where it appears that Kyle Busch kind of gives John Hunter a little bit of a hip check into the wall. A hard hit for John Hunter.

“Kyle Busch ends up around 20th in a day where he had run top 10 much of the day. And you thought he was going to have a great first weekend with Andy Street, and instead it ends up in frustration.”