Man who climbed fence at Richmond race sentenced to jail time
The man who caused a caution flag during the September race at Richmond by climbing onto the catchfence in turn four was sentenced to a year in jail on Thursday with 11 months suspended.
A judge found James Dennis guilty on Thursday of being drunk in public and disorderly conduct and sentenced him to a year in jail with all but one month suspended. He was also ordered to pay a $100 fine on each of the counts.
Dennis, 53, was shirtless and climbed up on the fence, apparently avoiding all track security in the process. NASCAR was forced to put out the yellow flag and Dennis was apprehended when he climbed down from the fence.
“It was one of those crazy spur of the moment things I should have never did and more or less ashamed of myself for doing,” Dennis had said in September.
According to NBC 12, Dennis said after he was arrested that he was trying to get a picture of Kevin Harvick, his favorite driver. Maybe it’s of small consolation to him that Harvick won the 2014 championship, though we imagine there aren’t too many people who would trade up to year of jail time for a title for their favorite driver.
And while his move was one of the most memorable events of the 2014 season, it’s because it was incredibly insane and unsafe. Hopefully the sentence serves as a nice deterrent for anyone crazy (and liquid-couraged) enough to repeat what Dennis did.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
