Kyle Busch put the fans to sleep with a dominant victory Saturday in the NASCAR Nationwide Series Heluva Good! 200 at Dover International Speedway.
But Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer woke them up with a late-race dust-up that sent Bowyer to the garage and the Nationwide Series hauler.
Meanwhile, as Busch celebrated in Victory Lane, Bowyer was waiting in the Nationwide hauler to meet with NASCAR officials. On the next-to-last restart, Hamlin punted Bowyer out of second place as the green flag waved. The fracas triggered a nine-car accident and an 11-minute, 43-second red flag.
After the red was lifted, Bowyer drove from pit road and slammed into the side of Hamlin’s car, causing it to spin. NASCAR immediately parked Bowyer and sent him to the garage. NASCAR.com
“I wasn’t pleased that my car got torn up and I didn’t want to have to do that,” Bowyer said. “It’s the guys [on this team], they’ve been struggling. Frustration comes out. The last two or three months they’ve been coming home with wrecked race cars and finally were coming home with a good finish.
“I don’t have any beef with Denny. We get along fine. … Racing Late Models coming up through my career … if I wrecked somebody on the restart liked that, they come back and crash me exactly like that. It was pretty much tit for tat.”
Perhaps because neither driver runs full time in the Nationwide Series, there was no anger over the loss of valuable positions. But Hamlin, while understanding why Bowyer got into him, was perturbed that he was spun while running second under the caution because NASCAR doesn’t return drivers to their original position under such circumstances.
“The fact is that you don’t get your spot back,” Hamlin said. “It makes it if you don’t want somebody to win, you can spin them out if your day is already done. You can work that into teammates in [Sprint] Cup for a championship, just spin the guy and he loses the spot.
Hamlin, running third at the time, said he did not intentionally get into Bowyer on the restart. Bowyer lined up front of him when leader Kyle Busch chose the outside lane for the restart.
“I just barely clipped him,” Hamlin said. “That is just part of it. He was spinning his tires real, real bad and I barely clipped him.” FOXNews
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NASCAR Nationwide Series: Heluva Good! 200 at Dover - Race Results
Kyle Busch Wins Heluva Good! 200 NASCAR Nationwide Race at Dover International Speedway
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