Everyone loves a heated rivalry between drivers, as it adds some extra zest to their on-track battles. But sometimes, when the tensions reach boiling points, some lines can be crossed. Mike Skinner, taking Ross Chastain’s recent skirmish with Daniel Suarez as example, shed light on just that from experience.
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Chastain and Suarez made contact in Las Vegas last Sunday, following which Suarez ran into his former teammate in the cooldown lap. After they left their cars, hands were thrown and they had to be separated by officials, before things turned too physical and got out of hand.
Fines were handed out, which is something that got heavily discussed by the community thereafter, with some, like Bubba Wallace, calling for a ‘right to defend one’s honor‘. Skinner, while talking to Frontstretch, admitted with a laugh that he himself paid a bunch of fines for fighting back in the day.
“I remember going to Homestead one year,” the 68-year-old narrated. “They called me into the trailer and said, ‘Hey! We need to get $10,000 from you.’ I am like, ‘Okay. For what?’ They said, ‘You know what. You got the fight there at Phoenix last race.’ And I said, ‘He shouldn’t have done what he did. And I probably shouldn’t have done what I did.”
Skinner had still proposed paying the fine the following week, but they wouldn’t even let him get to practice without paying it upfront. So, Skinner has some good experience in dealing with fights and penalties for fights. With all that wisdom comes his opinion that the line between allowing drivers to fight and fining them for it is a very thin one.
“It’s exciting, and you don’t want the sport to get vanilla. NASCAR has got to, deep down inside, like when this happens, but they can’t endorse it. … We got to have a lot of passion.”#NASCAR Alumni @MSTheGunslinger shared his thoughts on fines for fighting#Goodyear400 pic.twitter.com/5ofjAKAwAQ
— Dalton Hopkins (@PitLaneCPT) March 22, 2026
He continued, “It’s exciting. You don’t want the sport to get vanilla. NASCAR has to deep down inside, like it when this happens. But they can’t endorse it. They can’t say it’s okay. Because it’s not. It’s really, really good to see passion back in the sport. When somebody wrecks someone, they’re showing passion. That’s what we have got to keep in this sport.”
Skinner believes that the emotion that a driver expresses is just a reflection of the passion he holds in his heart. In times like today, when not a lot of drivers are as hardcore or rough as the ones in the old days, such displays are a welcome sight. He used the example of someone calling Kyle Busch a ‘sore loser.’
He said, “Show me someone who is okay with losing, I am going to show you somebody who doesn’t win very much.” Skinner is a Truck Series legend who secured 28 wins and one championship (1995) across his career. He is currently employed with SiriusXM NASCAR Radio as a co-host and also mentors young drivers in the Truck Series and the ARCA Menards Series.
