The NASCAR season hasn’t even officially started and we’ve already got the sparks flying – on and off the track.
The sport kicked off 2023 with their first exhibition event, the Busch Light Clash, at the LA Coliseum last night. And even though the race was largely meaningless, the tempers were still flaring after the on-track action.
Last night’s race was quite the wreckfest there for a while, particularly after the halftime intermission (which featured a performance from Wiz Khalifa, which is a whole other story). After the break, the cars were having a tough time making it more than a couple laps around the specially-built quarter mile bullring without spinning each other out.
And one of the casualties from all that action was Kyle Busch.
With 65 laps to go in the race, Joey Logano drove his #22 Ford deep into the corner and drilled Kyle Busch, sending him spinning and bringing out yet another caution.
And Kyle wasn’t happy about it.
Despite rallying to finish third in his Richard Childress Racing debut driving the #8 car, Busch had some harsh words for Logano:
The ironic part of the whole incident is that the two were in the Fox Sports booth together just hours earlier during the evening’s heat races. But after the race, it sounds like the two should probably be separated for the time being, with Busch telling the media in his postrace interview:
“Logano didn’t get hit by nobody. He just flat out drove through me. So he’s got another one coming. I owe him a few.”
And in an interview with Sirius XM radio, Kyle made it clear that their time in the booth didn’t change how he feels about Logano’s racing style:
“I definitely am behind on that young buck. So one of these days I need to start getting back on the horse and grabbing it by the horns, I guess you’d say.
It’s really unfortunate to be raced by guys that are so two-faced. We were in the TV booth earlier in the night together and when we were all done with that he was like “Hey man, good luck tonight.” And I’m like “Ok great, thanks, yeah, whatever.”
And then lo and behold, there you go, he wrecked me. Don’t even talk to me if you’re going to be that kind of an asshole on the racetrack.”
For his part, Joey Logano took responsibility for the contact with Busch, saying after the race that he just “screwed up.”
Sounds like Logano better watch his rearview mirror for that #8 car this season – and Fox Sports might wanna reconsider before putting these two back in the booth together.
On second thought though, I’d almost pay to see that.
Gwen Stefani Embarrasses The Hell Out Of Clint Bowyer At The Busch Clash: “First Time I Met Him He Was WASTED”
Last night’s broadcast was handled by the likes of former drivers Clint Bowyer, Tony Stewart, and play-by-play analyst Mike Joy, however a number of special guests were on hand.
Including Gwen Stefani, the singer/songwriter and frontwoman of the ’90s era rock band No Doubt.
And here’s the thing, Gwen is married to country music’s own Blake Shelton, who just so happens to be good friends with Clint Bowyer.
So when she got into the broadcast booth, she got a little too comfortable with her ol’ pal Clint Bowyer, recalling the first time she met him… and he just so happened to be hammered drunk.
She didn’t leave that part out, though:
“I’ve heard Clint do “Don’t Speak,” at a campfire… the first time I met him he was WASTED, right?
And he was singing “Don’t Speak,” he was confessing that he was a fan.”
Clint was visibly uncomfortable:
“No… we’re still on the air Gwen, we’re on the air… this is a job for me, this is not play. I’ve worked for this.”
I mean, his face said it all. He was PISSED.
Gwen responded:
“No, it was a compliment to me to know that you actually listen to my music so thank you… ok, change the subject.”
OOF…
I mean, Clint is always the comedian, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so uncomfortable in an on-air situation. And could you blame him? His buddy’s wife shows up on the scene and starts putting him on blast… ON THE AIR.
Granted, she wasn’t trying to do anything malicious, but damn man… something tells me Blake is gonna get an angry text tonight.
And of course, Tony Stewart was laughing his ass off the whole time.
NASCAR Bans Ross Chastain’s Wall-Riding Move From Martinsville
The fun police have struck again…
Last November, the NASCAR world (and the sports world in general) was in awe at Ross Chastain‘s electrifying move at Martinsville to put himself into the championship four.
Chastain entered turn three on the last lap needing to gain spots to put himself in position to compete for the championship the following week.
So in one of the most incredible video game-type moves that anybody had ever seen, he put his car against the wall and floored it, riding the outside wall all the way around and sling-shotting himself past Denny Hamlin to secure the final spot in the championship four and knock Hamlin out of the trophy race.
I mean, it looked like it was fake it was so incredible.
But some of Chastain’s fellow competitors weren’t a fan of the move, with Kyle Larson even calling it “embarrassing” (despite the fact that Larson had tried to do the same thing at Darlington in 2021).
But apparently NASCAR agreed with all the naysayers, and they’ve announced that the move will no longer be allowed in the upcoming 2023 season.
Now, NASCAR isn’t issuing a new rule to ban the move. Instead, the sanctioning body warned competitors that it will use current rules to issue penalties to anyone who tries it.
According to NASCAR, any driver who pulls the move that Chastain did last year will receive a time penalty under rule rule 10.5.2.6.A, which states:
“Safety is a top priority for NASCAR and NEM (NASCAR Event Management). Therefore, any violations deemed to compromise the safety of an Event or otherwise pose a dangerous risk to the safety of Competitors, Officials, spectators, or others are treated with the highest degree of seriousness. Safety violations will be handled on a case-by-case basis.”
NASCAR’s senior vice president of competition Elton Sawyer confirmed that the video game move would in fact be a penalty going forward:
“Basically, if there’s an act that we feel that compromises the safety of our competitors, officials, spectators, we’re going to take that seriously. And we will penalize for that act going forward. Basically, what it would be is a lap or time penalty at the end of the race, so that move at Martinsville would be a penalty.”
But isn’t this a hypocritical move by NASCAR? After Chastain’s dramatic finish, the sport and NBC were replaying the hell out of the move to promote the championship race, and you know that you’ll see it in every commercial for this year’s Martinsville races.
Either way, looks like we won’t be seeing it on the track in 2023.
It was fun while it lasted…
