Clint Bowyer And Ryan Newman Scuffle After Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race
by Hunter Thomas May 19, 2019 0 commentsCONCORD, N.C. – Following the checked flag in the Monster Energy NASCAR All-Star Race at Charlotte Motor Speedway on Saturday night, Clint Bowyer and Ryan Newman got into a scuffle on pit road.
The two drivers raced each other hard throughout the 88-lap race. On the cool down lap following the checked flag, the two drivers traded paint. When they entered Turns 3 and 4, contact was made with the front of Newman’s car and the rear of Bowyer’s No. 14 Toco Warranty Ford. Bowyer then spun up the track and into the outside wall.
“Well, the 14 (Clint Bowyer) chopped me on the front straightaway earlier in the race, and I just about turned him around,” Newman said. “If I wouldn’t have hit the brakes, I would have turned him around. After the race, I just went up and tapped him in the back letting him know that I didn’t appreciate the way he raced me, and then he body slammed me. Then I hit him back a little bit on the back straightaway, and he just cut across my nose in Turn 3.”
Once the two drivers parked on pit road, Bowyer got out of his car with his helmet still on and began punching Newman through the window of No. 6 Acorns Ford. Newman then got out of his car and the two drivers exchanged words as crew members and NASCAR officials got in-between them.
“It doesn’t take much of a man to try and fight somebody with a helmet on,” Newman said. “I think he should be embarrassed with himself.”
Bowyer says that he thought Newman was a lap down and that the two weren’t racing each other for position. According to Bowyer, the retaliation from Newman after the race was a shock and not anticipated. However, when he ended up in the outside wall following the race, he got extremely upset and reacted.
“It was a damn sure surprise fight,” Bowyer said. “I don’t know what the hell his beef was. I thought he was a lap down. Our day was over. We lost track position there and got sideways, crossed up and basically, you know, just buying time there and seeing if something was going to happen at the end. They got four-wide off of (Turn) 4, hell I thought he was a lap down. I checked up, and he ran into my left rear, and that’s the last I saw of him, and then after the race, he comes and runs into my back, turns me all around. I pull up next to him, and he dumps me into (Turn) 4. Where I come from, you get poked in the nose for that. So, that’s what he got.”
NASCAR says that the Bowyer and Newman won’t be penalized for the scuffle, but if the tempers boil over to the Coca-Cola 600 weekend, then there may be consequences.
NASCAR Senior Vice President of Competition, Scott Miller said, “Through the conversations that we had with them, we think that we’ve kind of got them in a pretty good place, and we’ll make sure that we keep a pretty close eye on those two when they get close together on the racetrack and make sure it doesn’t escalate into something else.”
Clint Bowyer started on the pole for the $1 million to win race. He finished 12th following the action-packed night.
After starting sixth, Newman slid through the grass earlier in the race to bring out the caution on lap 37 after contact was made with Bubba Wallace. He finished just behind Bowyer in 13th.
The Coca-Cola 600 will broadcast live on FOX and the Performance Racing Network (PRN) at 6 p.m. ET on Sunday, May 26.
Photo Credit: Hunter Thomas/TheFourthTurn.com
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