“I’ll probably get in trouble for saying this”: NASCAR COO Steve O’Donnell reveals Bill France’s ‘plan’ amid Martinsville controversy

NASCAR Chief Operating Officer Steve O'Donnell has revealed Bill France's race 'plan' as the sport recently got engulfed in severe Martinsville controversy. During the Championship weekend media day at Phoenix Raceway, O'Donnell highlighted France's 'pissed off' take while the former slammed OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) for manipulating the race.

The XFINITY 500 at the 0.526-mile oval quickly attracted the spotlight for all the wrong reasons, shadowing Ryan Blaney's exhilarating win. After Christopher Bell was penalized for a wall ride move, making way for William Byron's Championship 4 race, controversy erupted about Chevrolet and Toyota's indulgence in race manipulation.

Two days after the 35th Cup Series race weekend, NASCAR deemed Chevy drivers Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon and Toyota's Bubba Wallace's actions illegal, reprimanding them with a $100,000 fine and stripping 50 driver points. A similar measure was taken against the team owners, awarding a $100,000 penalty and docking 50 owner points.

The governing body successfully punished the drivers, owners, and some crew members. However, the OEMs walked away from the fiasco as NASCAR's rule book has no provision, thus far, to penalize the manufacturers.

Steve O'Donnell expressed his frustration about the controversial race and laid bare Bill France's 'being pissed off is not a plan' take. He said (via Bob Pockrass).

"I would argue before what we saw, one of the best races we've seen in the playoffs, and it's unbelievable that we're sitting here talking about this topic. I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but I'll say it anyway. I've been around a long time, but Bill France used to say, 'Being pissed off is not a plan,'" O'Donnell said.

"What I saw in Martinsville pissed me off, and it pissed everyone off at NASCAR because we all know better, and we know what happens. We do have rules in the rulebook where we can address it, and we did...Do we have a rule right now where we could do something? We don't. Will we have a rule next year? 1,000 percent," the NASCAR COO added.

Steve O'Donnell also mentioned the knockout playoff system and was extremely clear about the format staying in the sport in the future.

"We're going to react": NASCAR Senior VP of Competition Elton Sawyer on slapping penalties on violators

The officials issued $600,000 fines for three drivers and five team owners. Ross Chastain and Austin Dillon were penalized for helping William Byron punch the Phoenix ticket by neither overtaking the HMS driver and roadblocking the rivals from passing Byron's #24 Chevy. As a result, Trackhouse Racing's Justin Marks and Pitbull were fined $100,000 and Richard Childress will bear the $100,000 blow alone.

Bubba Wallace was penalized for slowing down on the final lap to let Christopher Bell pass. Even though Wallace said he reduced his speed due to a mechanical issue, NASCAR didn't change its ruling. Thus, Denny Hamlin and Michael Jordan were fined $100,000.

Following the strong measures, Elton Sawyer said that a meeting was due with the OEMs. He emphasized that NASCAR would fittingly react to any act jeopardizing the sport's integrity. The VP of Competition elaborated (via AP News).

“In this case we felt we wanted to focus more on the team leadership, something that we haven’t done in the past. But I promise you that does not exclude going forward. We have meetings coming up this week with our drivers and we will get that point across to them and be very clear that when you do anything that’s going to compromise the integrity of our sport, we’re going to react,” Sawyer said.

Amid the controversial Martinsville battle, Denny Hamlin slammed the knockout playoff format for producing such races.