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NASCAR announced Tuesday that Whelen Modified Tour team owner David Hill has been suspended indefinitely by the sanctioning body for his use of a racial slur in a Facebook posting made Saturday evening.

Hill must attend a NASCAR mandated sensitivity training program to be eligible to apply for reinstatement to NASCAR, though completion of the training program does not guarantee reinstatement.

According to a NASCAR release Hill: “… violated Sections 7-5 (NASCAR’s Code of Conduct) and 12-1 (Actions detrimental to stock car racing) of the 2014 NASCAR Rule Book.”

“Following the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour race on Aug. 30, David Hill made a post on social media that included remarks that we will not tolerate,” Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer said in a release. “We fully expect our entire industry to adhere to the Code of Conduct that is explicitly spelled out in the NASCAR Rule Book.”

Hill’s posting on Facebook, directed a racial slur at reigning NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion Ryan Preece of Berlin, and also included a veiled threat directed at Preece (Click the link to see Hill’s Facebook post from Saturday).

Hill owns the Westfield, N.C. based Hill Enterprises racing team. The team had fielded a full-time car on the Whelen Modified Tour for more than two decades before leaving the series last year to run full-time on the Whelen Southern Modified Tour. The team has made three Whelen Modified Tour starts this year with Spencer Davis driving.

Preece, a regular on the Whelen Modified Tour, was at Langley Speedway in Hampton, Va. Saturday night competing in the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour Bayport Credit Union 150. Preece finished ninth in the event driving a family owned car. Davis, driving for Hill, finished 14th in the 17-car field.

The comment about “payback” was making reference to the fact that Hill’s team had been scheduled to be competing, against Preece in the Whelen Modified Tour season finale at Thompson Speedway on Oct. 19. Preece drives for the Flamingo Motorsports team on the Whelen Modified Tour.

Hill deleted the comment not long after posting it.

“It was never meant to be a racist remark,” Hill said Sunday morning. “You know it’s a figure of speech. It wasn’t meant anything the wrong way. It was took the wrong way. I should have had a better choice of words. And you shouldn’t be typing on Facebook when you’re upset that a really good run was taken away. I need to do better with my choice of words. … I did do it. But it’s definitely not the way I am. … I’m sorry for posting that. That’s not me.”

NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Jeremy Clements was suspended in February 2013 for using the “N-word” during a conversation with a writer for the television network MTV at Daytona International Speedway. Clements completed a racial sensitivity counseling session with Dr. Richard Lapchick of the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport and was reinstated two weeks after his suspension.