In what seemed like a relatively calm finish in Saturday night’s Bank of America 500, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series garage was anything but following the checkered flag in the second race of the Contender round.
With a championship berth on the line, Brad Keselowski found himself the target of three separate post-race altercations with drivers Denny Hamlin, Tony Stewart and Matt Kenseth.
Keselowski, who sits 10th in the series standings following Charlotte, was unhappy with Hamlin’s driving style during the closing laps at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway tried to retaliate following the checkered flag, by spinning the No. 11 FedEx Toyota, but only clipped the left rear.
A second attempt on pit road didn’t fare much better, as the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion made contact with Tony Stewart instead, who was hit from a parked Kenseth. Stewart, then agitated about what transpired, rammed his No. 14 Chevrolet into the front-end of Keselowski’s Ford.
Keselowski, who finished 16th and ninth-place finisher Denny Hamlin, along with their teams traded insults in the garage in the wake of their escapade. Keselowski, then on his walk towards the front of his Team Penske hauler was then jumped by Kenseth from behind, who attempted to put Keselowski into a headlock, before being separated by NASCAR officials.
“I think the 20 car got in back of me on one of the restarts, it was just a racing deal and I wasn’t mad at him,” said Keselowski. “But when the last yellow came out he got the wave-around and when he came by, he swung at my car and tore the whole right-front off of it. When we restarted fifth with no right-front on it, we fell all the way back to 16th and it ruined our day.
“That gave us a big Chase hurt, which is unfortunate, and then for some reason after the race the 11 stopped in front of me and tried to pick a fight. I don’t know what that was all about and he swung and hit at my car, so I figured if we’re gonna play car wars under yellow and after the race I’ll join too. Those guys can dish it out, but they can’t take it. I gave it back to them and now they want to fight, so I don’t know what’s up with that.”
As for the pit road wars?
“I rubbed into the 20 and I think he gassed up and ran into Tony, and don’t think Tony knew what was going on so he’s probably upset and he has every right to be,” added Keselowski. “His car got tore up, but there was a whole lot of other stuff going on and I’m sure when he sees the whole situation he’ll understand.
“The 20 car and the 11 car both hit me under yellow and once the race was over I hit them back and they couldn’t take it. I think he (No. 14) thought that I ran into him when the 20 car hit him, and it was the 20 car that hit him so it was just confusion.”
Kenseth’s knowingly calm demeanor transformed, but undoubtedly justifiable at the cost of safety for himself and others.
“Besides racing, he knew I was out there on that restart,” said Kenseth. “I guess I should not have went out there. And really, the safety. He was doing something with Denny. And I don’t know if he was mad at me. I had my HANS off and my seat belts off and everything. He clobbered me at 50 (MPH). And the access we have around here, just, the race is over, try to come back to pit road.
“If you want to talk about it as a man, try do that, but to try and wreck someone on the race track, come down pit road with other cars and people standing around with seat belts off and drive in the side of me. It’s unexcusable. There is no excuse for that. He is a champion. He supposed to know better than that.”
Kenseth, a Chase contender and often dubbed as one of NASCAR’s most mild-mannered drivers, was (obviously) irate with Keselowski.
“I went after him because I don’t want to get hurt or killed on pit road,” Kenseth said. “Everybody is vulnerable there. … Yeah, I’m mad.
“He could have put something through my door and I could be going to the hospital right now because he’s an idiot.”
Hamlin too weighed in on Keselowski’s rant. “There’s a corner there so you have to back off and he just plowed into us. He’s just out of control. He’s desperate obviously and it’s either four or five of us are wrong or he’s wrong because he’s pissed off everyone. Just disappointing — but we’re trying to get in this deal. We’re sitting in a decent spot, but we’ve lost six spots or so with the last restart when he ran into us and knocked us up the track.
“That was unfortunate. Matt (Kenseth) was nearly out of his car and he just plowed into Matt (Kenseth) and then ran into Tony (Stewart) and then went in through the garage and cleared out transmissions and did burnouts in the garage. Just acting like a dumbass instead of a champion.”
Race winner Kevin Harvick, who secured his entry into the Eliminator round with his third win of the season even weighed in on Kenseth’s actions:
“When you see Matt Kenseth mad enough to fight, you know that this is intense because that’s way out of character for him.”
Robin Pemberton, vice president of competition for NASCAR noted, “We asked Brad (Keselowski) to come in and talk to us a little bit and get his take on what went on in the closing laps of the race and the post-race incidents. So we’ve got that, and we’ll talk to some other people later on.
“We have to have some point person to talk to. Jesse Sanders was the one that we had brought in. Our officials brought him in the trailer to talk to us, and Jason (Ratcliff, Joe Gibbs Racing) was just in there to represent the (No. 20) team and make sure Jesse was there doing what he did. We did not call Jason to the trailer.
“As always, we’ll look at everything. We’ll continue to gather the facts, the tapes, and the video, things of that nature, and talk to some other people that were around. We’ll work on that, and more than likely, we’ll come up with something by Tuesday or something, like we normally do.”
Tony Stewart left the track without comment.
Oh by the way, Hamlin, Kenseth and Keselowski head to Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway next weekend not guaranteed a berth into the Eliminator (third) round of the Chase.
Follow Chris Knight on Twitter @Knighter01.
