Oh, race car drivers.
People complain about NFL players off the field, but there may be no sport with more absurd fighting than NASCAR.
The sport’s dark side reared its ugly head again on Saturday night when Matt Kenseth jumped Brad Keselowski after the Bank of America 500 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Rarely have we seen as ugly an off-track incident as you’ll watch above.
Kenseth, who is a 31-time race winner and the 2003 season champion, literally jumped Keselowski, the 2012 Sprint Cup champion, in the garage area after the two got into an in-car spat on pit lane following the race. The pit crews pulled the two drivers apart before it could get too ugly, though.
Keselowski had rammed into Kenseth’s car on pit road after the two made contact on the track during the race’s final caution. Keselowski blamed Kenseth for that contact; Kenseth, of course, blamed Keselowski.
But the anger at Keselowski after the race was almost universal.
Kenseth had already removed his seat belt and neck restraint on pit road when Keselowski rammed him.
“It was really the safety. He was doing something with [Denny] Hamlin, I had my seatbelt off, my [head-and-neck restraint] off and he clobbers me,” Kenseth said. “The race is over; come back to pit road. If you want to talk about it like a man, go do that. But if you want to wreck somebody on the racetrack with people standing around, that’s just inexcusable.”
Hamlin was also rammed by Keselowski on pit road and the two confronted each other outside their cars.
Anyway, Kevin Harvick won the race. He was probably laughing at all the chaos.
This gives me as good a chance as any to include the greatest fight in NASCAR history though — Donnie Allison and Cale Yarborough trading blows on the backstretch at the 1979 Daytona 500.
Follow Metro New York Sports Editor Mark Osborne on Twitter @MetroNYSports. He promises not to punch anyone in the face today.
