Moffat on push and shove

Nissan factory racer James Moffat believes there’s nothingwrong with a bit of pitlane pushing and shoving between drivers – and his teamboss Rick Kelly agrees.

Moffat was fined $5000 ($2000 suspended) for making“physical contact” with Ekol Holden Commodore driver Scott Pye after theytangled on the track in race two at Albert Park during the Australian GrandPrix meeting.

Speaking on the syndicated V8Nation radio show – which RickKelly hosts with Paul Dumbrell – Moffat said the incident was “unfortunate”.

“Honestly it was just a small shove, you can never condoneviolence, but a bit of theatre in the sport probably wouldn’t be a bad thing,”he said.

“If I had dropped the guy it would have been a completelydifferent story, but that definitely wasn’t the case.

“The penalty is what it is, it’s unfortunate, and I won’t doit again.”

Moffat explained his annoyance with the Lucas DumbrellMotorsport driver had actually begun in practise, before having more issues withhim in the streaming wet Saturday afternoon race.

“I wasn’t happy with a few of the things Scotty did on thetrack and it went back to a little bit of an incident with him when he held meup in practise,” Moffat explained.

“I wasn’t entirely impressed with some of his driving in thewet when grip is not entirely at a premium anyway, and he was throwing a fewslide jobs and etcetera in those conditions … I just went up and had a bit ofchat to him.”

Moffat then shoved the Dunlop series graduate and left theLDM garage. He was subsequently fined by the stewards.

It was the only real downer for Moffat on a weekend where heran consistently in the top 10 in the new Norton 360 Nissan Altima.

Kelly, who was involved in a widely reported scuffle withSteven Richards at Symmons Plains in 2010, said that some pushing and shovingbetween drivers is good for the show.

“My opinion is you should be allowed some of that sort ofstuff,” he said. “Not over-stepping.”

He also queried why his incident wit Richards had escapedofficial sanction while Moffat had been punished.

“What was different in this scenario for them to go ‘this isnot acceptable and throw a fine at you’? You didn’t swing at the guy by anystretch of the imagination as far as I understand it.”

However, Kelly’s defence of his driver didn’t stop himsuggesting that he should get a new nickname – ‘Mad Moff’.