Stenhouse and Busch Get Into It

Last night was eventful! How about Stenhouse sticking to his guns and laying the hammer down on Kyle Busch, and yes, Stenhouse got him good. Review the tape if you think otherwise; if you still believe otherwise, you're blind and stupid. You can watch almost every angle of the interaction on my X account (@OKLHDawson), from what happened on the track to what happened after the fight in the infield. Lord knows I reposted about every angle that you could get. I understand that I have a heavy bias towards Stenhouse, so I encourage you to go back and review the tape and come to your own conclusion, but this is how I see last night's incidents. 

During last night's All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway, Kyle Busch and Ricky Stenhouse made some contact with one another in the opening lap of the race. Depending on what side of the fence you're on, you either believe Stenhouse ran Busch up the track, or you believe Kyle ran up and into the wall and was rattled between it and Stenhouse. If you review the tape, the space between Stenhouse and Busch was enough for Kyle not to hit the wall, but again, I know some of you will disagree because facts hurt your feelings. 

Regardless of what you believe happened in Turn 4, we know for a fact that Kyle Busch blamed Stenhouse for the incident and showed his displeasure by turning the #47 Camero into the wall on Turn 1 of the second lap. This ended Stenhouse's night and ensured JTG Daugherty didn't get a shot at the $1,000,000 up for grabs. 

In response, Stenhouse parked his wrecked car in the #8 car's pit stall and spoke with Busch's crew chief. After being checked out in the infield care center, Stenhouse was interviewed and basically told us to grab our popcorn after the race. In North Wilkesboro, there is no escaping the infield while the race is running. For 198 laps, Stenhouse had to fester in his frustrations, which leads us to the post-race interaction. 

After the race, Stenhouse was waiting for Busch at his hauler.

Sidebar: Who is watching these haulers during the race? What's stopping people from walking in and stealing a wrench or something? If you walk around and act like you know what you're doing, you can get into just about anywhere you want, but you don't even have to look the part to walk up into someone's hauler. 

Anyways, Stenhouse expressed his frustration with Busch, saying, "I didn't touch you. Not once... you hit the fence, and then you hit me," to which Busch responded, "I don't believe it, but if that's what happened, Ok." 

That sent Stenhouse over the edge, and he swung at Busch and made contact with him. The two were separated, but Ricky Stenhouse Sr. went after Busch, standin' on business. The two teams went after it for a few seconds, and we were all blessed with the Hulk, who was pushing dudes off the #8 hauler (go back and watch the tape if you don't know who I'm talking about). I may side with Stenhouse here, but I'm a big fan of pit and garage crews going at one another. Who doesn't want to watch that? 

Eventually, the fighting fizzled out, and the two continued to shout at one another, but neither side could see eye to eye. Ricky went on to say, "We're a single-car team over here; we're working really hard to go out and get better each and every weekend, and we had a really good game plan coming into today. Our car was really strong Friday in practice; I was looking forward to running to the front. I think we'd passed a couple of cars there, and I was excited for the rest of the night, and he ruined it."

This upcoming weekend, we have 600 miles of racing. Unless the two make amends by Sunday, expect the drama to continue in Charlotte. It would not surprise me if one of them DNFd the race because of the other. ​