The weekend at Richmond started with a kick in the nuts and ended with Kurt Busch making a few more friends. In what has become a typical NASCAR weekend where the race winner, Kevin Harvick, becomes a side story, the action off the track takes center stage. This season has been just what the Doctor ordered to a sport heavily criticized for its bland racing in recent seasons.
While spending a good part of this season frustrated with his Crew Chief and his team, Kevin Harvick won his first race of the year. Harvick, who is leaving Richard Childress Racing after this season, was all smiles afterwards. “All of us were frustrated. People like you guys look at the results on Monday. I think a win goes a long way”. With his win Harvick moved to 9th in Sprint Cup points and right into the discussion for the championship. Clint Bowyer finished second and Juan Pablo Montoya finished a very strong third. Point leader Jimmie Johnson finished 12th and last season’s Sprint Cup Champion, Brad Keselowski finished a disappointing 33rd.
Kurt Busch was the recipient of some hate from the normally calm cool and collected Matt Kenseth as well as the usually not so calm and not so collected, Tony Stewart. Even Martin Truex Jr. joined in the fun. At lap 55 and racing for second place, Kurt Busch got into the back of Truex and spun him around. With the race ending with a green-white-checkered restart, all hell broke loose with Kurt Busch finding himself in the middle of most of it and ended up getting tangled with Stewart and Kenseth.
On the cool down lap Kurt Busch ran into the back of Matt Kenseth. Kenseth said he just barely moved Busch out of the way and couldn’t understand why Busch was upset. Kenseth was quoted after the race, “It’s hard to say with Kurt – he probably had one of his Kurt moments. I wasn’t happy with him either. He destroyed the back of my car.”
After banging car doors with Busch, Stewart was on his radio to his crew, “(expletive) He just (expletive) drove in and ass-packed me.” Stewart had no comment after the race.
Busch on the other hand did not understand why Stewart was upset. “I have no idea,” Busch said. “It was a free fall at the end. Everybody is slamming everybody.”
Also after the race Martin Truex Jr. was upset with Kurt Busch for spinning him out saying he was racing him hard but had given him plenty of room. Busch disagreed saying, “Truex came down really hard on the straightaway. We had position on the inside and he (Truex) turned down really early into turn 3”.
If I’m an owner of one of these million dollar cars I don’t mind my drivers mixing it up on the track racing for positions. I think I’d have a bit of a problem with these guys wrecking my car AFTER a race though. Maybe they ought to make the drivers pay to fix the damage done during these road rage incidents. Bet that would put a stop to it, huh?
Now about that kick in the nuts. After the Friday night Nationwide race and during the cool down lap Nelson Piquet Jr. and Brian Scott bumped onto each other. Scott confronted Piquet on pit road and Piquet shoved Scott and then kicked him in the groin as the two scuffled. Sunday night Piquet Jr. tweeted an apology. “What a crazy night. First I’d like to say I am sorry to our fans, sponsors, and my team for the incident at the end of the race. Afterwards on pit road my first reaction was to defend myself. I had no intent to break the code. With that kick, no wonder I race cars and not play soccer. I look forward to moving on and racing again.”
Well after the Scott tweeted to his uniform maker, “I’m going to have to see if @SparcoOfficial can sew cups into my uniform to protect my jewels.”
Several hours later in the driver’s motorhome area a fight broke out. Two members of Richard Childress Racing, Scott’s team, were arrested. Michael Searce , a mechanic on Scott’s race team was arrested and charged with two charges of misdemeanor assault . Thomas Costello, an interior specialist for Scott’s tem was arrested and charged with one count of misdemeanor assault.
Neither Scott nor Piquet Jr. faces any discipline from NASCAR. The same cannot be said for Searce and Costello. Saturday night racing on a short track, Richmond style. On to superspeedway track of Talladega we go!
My picks for Talladega:
- Dale Earnhardt Jr.
- Tony Stewart
- Jimmie Johnson
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