Ryan Newman, Tommy Baldwin Jr. involved in post-race fight at Kenny Minter Classic

Of course, the altercation comes after Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Kyle Busch dominated headlines all week due to their fight at North Wilkesboro following the 2024 NASCAR Cup Series All-Star Race. This bout won’t have the same impact as that one did, but it’s still a pretty fascinating spout between Newman and Baldwin Jr.

One of the many interesting threads connecting these two combatants is that Baldwin Jr. is currently the Competition Director for Rick Ware Racing. Last season, Newman ran a couple of races for the smaller-sized team, helping them with his name recognition in the Cup Series.

It didn’t exactly go well, but perhaps it strained the relationship between the two parties. Or it could simply be an isolated incident. Time will tell, but Ryan Newman isn’t someone you want to mess with, just ask anyone who’s raced in the Cup Series over the last two decades.

Chase Elliott highly critical of NASCAR over Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fine for fight with Kyle Busch

Chase Elliott found out for the first time Friday that NASCAR fined Ricky Stenhouse Jr. $75,000 for his role in the fight with Kyle Busch following this past Sunday’s All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro Speedway. 

He was not happy.

In fact, he was quite critical of NASCAR, calling the sanctioning body out for promoting the fight but then turning around and levying a heavy fine for Stenhouse. 

“Wow, that seems like a lot to me… You’re going to fine him, but you’re going to promote with it? What are we doing? That’s a little strange to me. That’s a lot of money to fine a guy. It’s not OK, but we’re gonna blast it all over everything to get more clicks. I don’t really agree with that,” Elliott said, via Toby Christie of Racing America. 

If it seems like the $75,000 fine was steep, that’s because it was. Per Seth Eggert of Kickin’ The Tires, it’s the biggest fine NASCAR has ever issued specifically for a fight. Tony Stewart was the previous record holder, having been fined $50,000 for hitting Brian Vickers at Sonoma Raceway in 2004. Busch, meanwhile, did not receive any fine or penalty from NASCAR.

On3’s Nick Geddes contributed to this article.