Darrell Wallace fined $15K for post-race 'muppets' officiating tweet

Xfinity Series driver Darrell Wallace expressed his unhappiness with NASCAR’s officiating at the end of Friday night’s race at Daytona. That expression has cost him $15,000.

NASCAR announced it fined Wallace Wednesday morning for the tweet. To Wallace’s great credit, he didn’t delete the tweet, which is below:

NASCAR officials waited way too long to throw a caution after a crash on the backstretch during the race’s final lap. Instead of waiting for the leaders to cross the finish line, NASCAR decided to throw a caution as Justin Allgaier and Aric Almirola were exiting turn 4. The caution call – 19 seconds after the first car hit the wall – meant NASCAR was forced to sync replays to determine which driver (Almirola) was leading at the moment of caution.

According to NASCAR’s penalty report, Wallace was given a behavioral penalty under Sections 12.1; 12.8 a; 12.8.1 b of the rule book.

NASCAR officials said after the race that they didn’t see the severity of the crash on the backstretch when it first happened; hence the delay in calling for the caution. It’s the second time a lack of recognizance has caused caution hesitation in the Xfinity Series this season. In March, NASCAR officials didn’t see a crashed car in turn 2 until another car crashed into it trying to avoid the accident.

Want to guess who the driver was that crashed into the wounded car at Vegas? Yup, Wallace.

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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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