All star Shenanigans

       What started off as a chaotic weekend ended as a crazy scene of events that I believe shenanigans is the best word.North Wilksboro has had its interesting moments over its history and already more memories in a small sample size as NASCAR just came back in qualifying. 

         The big story coming into the weekend is Kyle Larson attempting to run both of Indy 500 and the Coke 600. He does seem like a normal favorite to win in the 600, but Larson has been flying as well. He is not only starting P5 in the Indy 500, he is also one of the fastest in NASCAR as he was charging through the All Star race field all night to get P4.

       Qualifying was finished for the All star but not the open due to rain which would have Ty Gibbs and Alex Bowman on the front row. Chase Briscoe and Bubba would make up row two of the open. It didn’t take long for ty to build up a lead and for Bubba to take second as they had the two strongest cars able to make the transfer as they finished .1-2 with Ty winning. Noah Gragson would win the fan vote. Now onto the Main event.

   Joey Logano and Denny Hamlin started on the front row via qualifying and proved to be rather strong. Only lap 2 would bring out the first caution.  Our first caution would be for a Kerfuffle between Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Kyle Busch that started with them 3 wide and Busch bouncing off the wall and ended with Kyle punting Stenhouse into the outside wall 3 quarters of a lap late effectively ending his race. These two would meet again during the broadcast.

       As far as on track activity there was more passing but with the new multi tire compound format with “prime and option” tires, the expected drop off wasn’t there. The race was more exciting than last year but it seemed after tire wear kicked in if any the top line was king and this was a track position race for the most part. I do however believe a difference would’ve been made if this tire was ran during the day as it’s a fresh repave and most if not all of practice was in the day time. 

       Joey would surprisingly go on to lead all but one lap while facing 3 wide racing at a point in time. He would go on to win, with Denny Hamlin 2nd, Chris Buescher in 3rd, Kyle Larson in 4th, and Ryan Blaney in 5th. Overall this still seems very track position with the high line being the preferred lane and a big bump coming off of turn 4 on the bottom. Based off of what I saw in the truck series, this isn’t a bad track, it’s just the current Cup Series package still needs work. Goodyear can’t do everything!

    Now remember what I said about getting back to Kyle Busch Ricky Stenhouse Jr? Oh Stenhouse waited the entirety of the race from lap two to 200, because he couldn’t even leave because there was no exit on the active “Hot” racetrack. He had to wait until race end for the gates to open so he had a while to think about what he was going to say or do to Kyle Busch post race. So the checkered flags fell and Kyle Busch, finishing 10th got out his car and walked to the hauler where he was met by Stenhouse and they briefly talked it over and then Stenhouse threw a bunch, connecting with Kyle and a  brawl involving both drivers crew members broke out.

     After the smoke cleared both drivers had their chance to tell their side of the story. Stenhouse said he and Kyle raced each other hard all the time but Stenhouse was tired of Kyle running his mouth. Kyle said he was tired of getting ran over. I think Kyle didn’t see the replay yet but Rickey had a space he could’ve filled and that’s what he did and Busch bounced off the wall and that’s what led to the confrontation. I think this brawl shows how passionate these two drivers are as they both want to win just like anyone else in the field but at the same time that’s just short track racing and short track tempers.

      All in all this was an okay race but the fireworks after the race in the garage stole the show. This is NASCAR and it sort of comes with everything, even if that invokes a somewhat less exciting event compared to others but you still have fireworks going off and  tempers flaring. Up next is the Coca Cola 600, peace. 

  

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