Culture

Chase Elliott calls out NASCAR for sharing fight video

Published

2 years ago

May 25, 2024

Chase Elliott calls out NASCAR for sharing fight video

Chase Elliott, NASCAR’s most popular driver, had pointed criticism for NASCAR after the sanctioning body issued a record fine earlier this week against Ricky Stenhouse Jr. for his role in a fight following last Sunday’s All-Star Race at North Wilkesboro.

Elliott was aware Stenhouse had been fined for throwing a punch at Kyle Busch, but the 2020 Cup Series champion did not know the exact amount before being informed during a press conference Friday at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the site of Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600.

Stenhouse was fined $75,000, the largest fine issued in NASCAR history for a driver fighting. Elliott appeared in disbelief upon learning the exact dollar figure.

“Seventy-five thousand? Wow,” Elliott said. “I heard he got fined, but I didn’t know it was $75,000.

“Yeah, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of money. That seems wild to me.”

The stunned reaction by Elliott stems from the fact that NASCAR fined Stenhouse despite actively sharing footage of the fight across its social media channels. What Elliott took exception to is what he sees as a double standard where NASCAR has touted the fight multiple times, yet not only penalized Stenhouse but did so by handing down a record fine.

“That seems like a lot for that situation,” Elliott said. “You’re going to fine him, but you’re going to promote with it? Like what are we doing? That’s a little strange to me.

“That’s a lot of money to fine a guy. It’s not OK, but we’re going to blast it all over everything to get more clicks. I don’t really agree with that.”

Elliott is not the only driver to raise the issue. Daniel Suarez posted a similar sentiment on X.

“If it’s so wrong then why is it all over NASCAR social channels?” Suarez posted. “We should be allowed to show our emotions, I don’t get it.”

Stenhouse confronted Busch following the All-Star Race after Busch appeared to intentionally wreck him on the second lap of the non-points event for what Busch thought was an overly aggressive move on the opening lap.

Upon completion of the race, Stenhouse waited for Busch at Busch’s Richard Childress Racing hauler, a span of 90-plus minutes from the time he crashed until the confrontation. After Stenhouse and Busch had a short, heated exchange of words, Stenhouse punched Busch in the head. That triggered a fight between their respective teams, which included Stenhouse’s dad charging at Busch and starting a physical confrontation between them.

Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. fight after the All-Star Race. pic.twitter.com/IJMttBw90W
— Jordan Bianchi (@Jordan_Bianchi) May 20, 2024

Busch was not suspended for his actions. NASCAR suspended Ricky Stenhouse Sr. indefinitely, while also suspending two members of Stenhouse Jr.’s JTG Daugherty Racing team, mechanic Clint Myrick for eight races and engine tuner Keith Matthews for four races.

Although NASCAR has not always penalized drivers who fight, the difference, NASCAR senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer explained Wednesday, was that Stenhouse had ample time to cool down before initiating the fight.

“I will say when you wait, you know, 198 laps and you make those decisions that were made, we’re going to react to that,” Sawyer said on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “There could have been different decisions made.

“We want the two drivers to be able to have their time to express their differences. But again, once it escalates to where there’s been a physical altercation there, again, we’re going to react.”

Busch was not penalized because NASCAR could not determine that he intentionally wrecked Stenhouse.

NASCAR’s decision to suspend Stenhouse Sr. was consistent with NASCAR’s policy that non-competitors are not to involve themselves in confrontations.

Required reading

(Photo: Sean Gardner / Getty Images)

Culture

Try This Quiz on Oscar-Winning Adaptations of Popular Books

Published

1 day ago

January 26, 2026

Press Room

Try This Quiz on Oscar-Winning Adaptations of Popular Books

Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions — or even books. With the Academy Award nominations announced last week, this week’s challenge celebrates past Oscar-winning films that were based on books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the books and their filmed versions.

Culture

What Kind of Lover Are You? This William Blake Poem Might Have the Answer.

Published

2 weeks ago

January 16, 2026

Press Room

What Kind of Lover Are You? This William Blake Poem Might Have the Answer.

By A.O. Scott and Aliza Aufrichtig

A.O. Scott is a critic at large for the Book Review. Aliza Aufrichtig is a visual journalist.

Jan. 16, 2026

Not every poem about love is a love poem. This one, from William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” first published in 1794, is more analytical than romantic. Instead of roses and violets, it offers us dirt and rocks.

William Blake (1757-1827), obscure in his own time and a hero to later generations of poets and spiritual seekers, made his living as an engraver and illustrator. He conceived and executed many of his poetic projects as works of visual as well as literary art, etching his verses and images onto copper plates and printing them in vivid color — a style designed to blur the boundary between word and picture.

From a 1795 copy of William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Experience.”

The Trustees of the British Museum

“The Clod & the Pebble” is set in a rustic tableau populated by wild and domesticated animals. In the print, we can’t quite see the main characters, who are presumably somewhere beneath the hooves and the ripples. But the cows and sheep, the frogs and the duck, are nonetheless connected to the poem’s meaning.

The two sections of “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” are meant to illustrate “the contrary states of the human soul” — the purity and wonder associated with early childhood and the harder knowledge that inevitably follows.

“The Clod & the Pebble” recapitulates this fall from sweetness into disillusionment, and the plate suggests it in contrasting ways. The wild animals down below symbolize a natural condition of innocence, while the livestock above live in confinement, bound to another’s use. At the same time, though, the cows and sheep are peaceful ruminants, while the frogs and the duck are predators.

In the poem, the Clod is an avatar of innocence. As it happens, this is a recurring character in the Blakean poetic universe. In “The Book of Thel,” a fantastical meditation composed a few years before the publication of “Songs of Innocence and of Experience,” the Clod appears as a maternal figure selflessly nursing a baby worm:

The Clod of Clay heard the Worms voice, & raisd her pitying head;

She bow’d over the weeping infant, and her life exhal’d

In milky fondness

“We live not for ourselves,” she tells the poem’s heroine, a young girl named Thel. But in Blake’s system self-sacrifice can never be the last word. There is no innocence without the fall into experience, and no experience without the memory of innocence. Giving gives way to wanting.

Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.

Get to know the poem better by filling in the missing words below.

Question 1/6

First, the Clod’s perspective.

Love seeketh not Itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care;

Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.

Culture

Try This Quiz on Myths and Stories That Inspired Recent Books

Published

2 weeks ago

January 12, 2026

Press Room

Try This Quiz on Myths and Stories That Inspired Recent Books

Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of 21st-century books that were inspired by ancient myths, legends and folk tales. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.