Senior NASCAR official claims aggressive driving is in the sport’s DNA

The 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season kicked off its first visit to a road course this year with the EchoPark Automotive Grand Prix. The 231-mile-long race, which took place at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, was one of the more interesting road course races to have taken place recently in the sport.

The 68-lap-long race at the 3.4-mile-long track had a stark resemblance to the Cup Series' visit to the Indianapolis Road Course last year. Drivers were seen jamming into turn 1 of the Austin, Texas track as enthusiastically as they were seen last year at Indianapolis.

This subsequent style of racing, which aims to use the next guy's bumper as a means to slow down, wrecked havoc at the end of last Sunday (March 26)'s race.

In what was mostly seen as a good race with 23XI Racing's Tyler Reddick proving his road-racing prowess, the race ended with a triple overtime restart. Persistent caution flags were flown as different cars ended up facing the wrong way on every restart, with a significant number of drivers also left fuming with the field's racing ettiquette.

NASCAR's senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer, however, seemed to disagree with the sentiments surrounding the race. He went onto SiriusXM NASCAR Radio to elaborate on the same, saying:

"We didn't see anything that crossed the line. Our DNA for 74+ years has been aggressive driving. What we see today is a little bit of a by-product, which is still good is the durability of the Next Gen car."

He further elaborated and said:

"I think there is a line. Teams and drivers understand for the most part where that line is and if we see something that looks just blatantly obvious then we're going to get involved."

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Denny Hamlin seems to disagree with NASCAR official's comments on aggressive driving in the sport

One of the most vocal drivers to have spoken on the issue of respect between drivers is Denny Hamlin. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver did not shy away from making his thoughts clear on his popular podcast, Actions Detrimental.

The Tampa, Florida native seemed to be in no mood to slow down as he also shared his opinion on Elton Sawyer's comments on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. He replied to the official snippet of the podcast and tweeted:

"Oh really?"

It remains to be seen how NASCAR handles the issue at hand. Meanwhile, drivers and teams will head to Richmond Raceway in Virginia for the Toyota Owners 400 next Sunday (April 2).