On Wednesday, NASCAR levied a $15,000 fine against John Wes Townley and placed him on probation for the remainder of the season for his involvement in a late-race incident at Gateway Motorsports Park on Saturday night.
Townley, who will not appeal the ruling, said his sole focus now is preparing for next week’s NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race at Kentucky Speedway.
“I want to apologize to NASCAR and my fans,” Townley said. “That’s not the way I want to represent myself, Zaxby’s or Jive Communications. I’ll try my best to make sure it never happens again.
“I was amazed at the comments from so many drivers who were supportive, most notably Tony Stewart.”
Townley originally planned on competing in tonight’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race in Daytona Beach, Fla. But following a day-long meeting with his Athenian Motorsports team earlier this week, the decision was made to withdraw from the event.
“Honestly, we went into this season with our sights sets on running strong in the Truck Series and ARCA. We’ve always said that. And we, as a team, don’t need to overlook those goals.
“We were getting ready to pull guys off our Truck and ARCA teams to go run an Xfinity race in Daytona. I love racing at Daytona. I’ve won there twice in ARCA.
“But considering that we have a Truck race and an ARCA race next week (at Iowa Speedway), we felt it was better to pour our time and resources into getting ready for next week.”
Townley is ready to put last weekend’s incident, and the publicity that followed, behind him.
“It’s been an interesting week, to say the least,” he said. “But I’m eager to get to Kentucky on Wednesday to practice on their new racing surface. We’ll have Jive Communications onboard our Chevrolet for this race and I feel like this will be the place we jump start our season.”
The Buckle Up in Your Truck 225 for the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series at Kentucky Speedway on Thursday July 7th will air live at 8:30 p.m. EDT on Fox Sports 1.
Iowa Speedway will play host to the ARCA 150 presented by Casey’s General Stores on Saturday July 9th. It will air live at 9 p.m. EDT on Fox Sports 2.
Athenian Motorsports PR
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