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NASCAR driver Zane Smith makes a decision on appealing his $50,000 fine following an incident involving Carson Hocevar. Here’s what it means.<\/p>\n
The deadline came and went, and Zane Smith never filed an appeal of his $50,000 NASCAR fine. Smith was fined for ramming Carson Hocevar after the Phoenix checkered flag, and he will now be required to pay that dollar amount, according to FOX Sports reporter Bob Pockrass<\/a>.<\/p>\n Neither Smith nor Front Row Motorsports has offered a public reason for letting the window close. The two drivers are scheduled to share the track<\/a> again Sunday at Talladega Superspeedway.<\/p>\n When the Freeway Insurance 500 ended Oct. 18, Smith did not lift. He steered his No. 38 Ford into the back of Hocevar\u2019s No. 77 Chevrolet on the cool-down lap, according to RACER reporter Kelly Crandall<\/a>.<\/p>\n The incident was apparently retaliation for an incident during the race, but apparently Smith was blaming the wrong driver.<\/p>\n Ross Chastain\u2019s Lap 296 hit on Hocevar<\/a> sent Hocevar\u2019s car into Smith\u2019s, and Smith\u2019s team radioed him that Chastain started it. <\/p>\n Smith\u2019s reply: \u201cI don\u2019t give a [expletive],\u201d according to Crandall.<\/p>\n Smith\u2019s feelings about Hocevar were no secret. <\/p>\n \u201cI just don\u2019t like him as a human,\u201d Smith said in July at EchoPark Speedway, as quoted in RACER\u2018s report<\/a>.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Front Row Motorsports Driver Smith\u2019s $50,000 Fine<\/p>\n NASCAR announced the penalty Tuesday, Oct. 20, under Sections 4.4a and 10.5.2.5a of the Rule Book, according to Crandall.<\/p>\n The real issue, according to NASCAR, was a July warning. <\/p>\n Officials summoned Smith and Hocevar to the hauler after their Chicagoland Speedway collision and delivered a blunt message. <\/p>\n \u201cIf you guys can\u2019t figure it out, we will help you figure it out,\u201d NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde said on the \u201cHauler Talk\u201d podcast, as quoted by the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n Forde said the same standard did not apply a week earlier at Charlotte, where Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. traded cool-down contact and drew no fine. The difference, he said, was \u201cthe conversation we had and the ask that we had that we felt was largely ignored,\u201d as quoted by the Associated Press.<\/p>\n The amount matches the $50,000 NASCAR levied on Bubba Wallace in 2024 for hitting Alex Bowman on the cool-down lap after the Chicago Street Race. Forde withheld details during the appeal window<\/a>, and said NASCAR might explain more if Smith did not challenge the fine.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Zane Smith\u2019s Disciplinary Record and Reactions<\/p>\n The friction with Hocevar dates to August 2025, when Hocevar lost control at Iowa Speedway and spun Smith into the wall. <\/p>\n \u201cI personally can\u2019t go have a conversation with him without getting a $75,000 fine,\u201d Smith said, as quoted by NASCAR.com afterward<\/a>.<\/p>\n Then came Chicagoland on July 5. Smith hit Hocevar on Lap 32 and sent both cars into the wall. <\/p>\n \u201cI just tried to move him off the bottom,\u201d Smith said, according to RACER. Hocevar suggested the two drivers needed \u201ccouples counseling.\u201d<\/p>\n NASCAR dropped him to last after a second-place Truck Series finish at Las Vegas in 2022 for a lug nut violation, according to NASCAR.com<\/a>. His car chief was ejected from Phoenix in March, according to NASCAR.com<\/a>. In 2018, he rammed ARCA rival Michael Self after a Salem Speedway clash, according to Frontstretch\u2018s ARCA race breakdown<\/a>.<\/p>\n McDowell rejected any comparison between the two cool-down incidents. <\/p>\n \u201cHow about we use our brains here and realize that rubbing doors in first gear at 40 mph is different than smashing someone at 130 mph,\u201d McDowell wrote on social media Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Analysts focused on the hauler meeting. <\/p>\n \u201cI think that the hauler chats, the hauler talks that they get called to, are sort of the modern-day equivalent of the probation,\u201d according to The Athletic\u2018s Jeff Gluck<\/a>. Denny Hamlin said on the \u201cActions Detrimental\u201d podcast that data showed Smith may have reached 120 mph.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t \n\t\t\tJonathan Vankin<\/a> JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist who covers MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, boxing, golf, and Olympic sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Newspaper and Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering the Olympics, pro baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty NASCAR driver Zane Smith makes a decision on appealing his $50,000 fine following an incident involving Carson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":["post-943847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nascar","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nascar","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=943847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/nascar-truck-crash-talladega.jpg\")
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