NASCAR threat revealed as insider shares fiery details from behind-the-scenes drivers' meeting

A NASCAR insider has revealed some fascinating details from a fiery behind-the-scenes drivers' meeting that took place recently, including a threat to park drivers for dirty driving.

Earlier this season, the NASCAR Xfinity Series caused huge controversy when a race at Martinsville ended in carnage following a deliberate wreck by Sammy Smith on Taylor Gray.

The series and its drivers came in for huge criticism as a result, and at the next race, NASCAR held a closed drivers' meeting to lay down the law.

The details of that 8 am meeting have now been detailed by The Athletic's Jordan Bianchi when talking to Xfinity Series team owner Dale Earnhardt Jr, whom Sammy Smith drives for.

NASCAR lays down the law to Xfinity Series drivers

Explaining how the meeting went down, Bianchi explained on the Dale Jr Download podcast: "As one driver explained to me, it was an a** chewing."

"NASCAR came in there and was very clear about what is acceptable and what is not.

"They basically called out Sammy Smith and said how he drove at Martinsville is not acceptable. As I was told, it doesn't take talent to drive the way he did at Martinsville and that this needs to clean up."

Bianchi continued: "A couple things out of this is one, NASCAR made it very known when we go back to Martinsville in the fall, if you guys drive like this and there's incidents, we're going to react and we're going to park people at Phoenix, championship be damned.

"And the other thing is, this is how someone explained it to me is, NASCAR said, 'We don't want to be in the business of making balls and strikes calls, but if we have to make a call, we're going to call strikes.' That was kind of the tenor of the conversation."

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