Life comes at you fast.
Last night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond Raceway was fairly clean, with no major wrecks and only a couple of cautions for incidents on the track.
But one of those came in the final laps of the race – and caused a little bit of controversy along with it.
Kyle Larson had dominated most of the race, but after some pit strategy found himself running fourth with two laps to go, when Bubba Wallace got into the back of the #5 Hendrick Chevy and sent Larson spinning.
Luckily for Larson he managed to save the car and keep rolling after the spin, and he didn’t hit anything in the process. So Larson, along with the rest of the field, came down pit road during the caution and got four fresh tires to set themselves up for the two-lap overtime finish.
And thanks to a lightning-fast stop from his pit crew, Larson ended up coming back out on the track in 4th place – right where he started before the spin.
But things didn’t go so well for Bubba Wallace.
Wallace’s pit crew had trouble on their stop, dropping the #23 Toyota for 23XI Racing back in the field, leaving Bubba to settle for a 13th-place finish after running in the top 5 with just two laps to go.
And after the race, Bubba was quick to confront Larson on pit road – to apologize, with the two drivers joking about how it ended up working out for Kyle in the end:
“That wasn’t intentional, I hope you know that…
It netted you and karma’s a f*cking bitch. It caught up to me. Sorry about that. Whatever’s coming my way, I know it. I expect it.”
For his part, Larson didn’t seem to hold any hard feelings for the contact, laughing with Bubba and telling the media on pit road that it wasn’t a big deal.
Of course, there’s another wrinkle to the story: The contact between Wallace and Larson came while Denny Hamlin was attempting to run down race leader Martin Truex Jr. And the caution from Larson’s spin allowed Hamlin to beat Truex Jr. off pit road to go on and win the race.
And who owns Bubba Wallace’s team? Well that would be Denny Hamlin.
So obviously the speculation immediately began flying that Bubba spun Larson on purpose to cause a caution to help his team owner, but Bubba was quick to shoot those theories down when asked about them by Bob Pockrass:
“That’s cause you’re saying that Bob. Stop making headlines.”
Of course people are going to be skeptical after Spingate back in 2013, when Clint Bowyer intentionally spun out at Richmond in order to help his teammate Martin Truex Jr. secure a spot in the Chase for the Championship.
Ironic that Truex found himself on the other side of the controversy this week – although everyone involved insists there was no controversy this time around.
