NASCAR issued a $50,000 fine to Cup Series driver Zane Smith after he rammed Carson Hocevar’s car during a post-race cool-down lap Sunday at Phoenix Raceway after ignoring orders to refrain from such antics.

NASCAR vice president of racing communications Mike Forde said on the “Hauler Talk” podcast that Smith and Hocevar had been warned back in July not to engage in any post-race contact following a run-in at Chicagoland Speedway.

“After they had their dust-up on the race track, we called both of them in at Atlanta,” Forde said. “And we don’t typically like talking about what we tell those drivers in the hauler. But in this case, pretty much the message was this: If you guys can’t figure it out, we will help you figure it out. And they couldn’t figure it out. So this is us pretty much helping. Zane Smith figured it out a little bit in the form of a $50,000 fine.

“When we have drivers called into the hauler like that, we don’t have it often, but when we feel like it’s necessary, we’re serious about those conversations.”

NASCAR elected not to fine drivers Michael McDowell and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. after similar post-race contact on Oct. 11 at Charlotte Motor Speedway following the checkered flag.

That altercation was quickly defused.

Forde said the reason Smith was fined and McDowell and Stenhouse were not is “because of the conversation we had and the ask that we had that we felt was largely ignored.”

There is precedence for such a fine. In 2024, NASCAR fined Bubba Wallace $50,000 for hitting Alex Bowman on the cool-down lap after the Chicago Street Race.

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