Kyle Busch and Joey Logano made contact both on the track on the final lap and on pit road after the Kobalt 400 race concluded at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
On the backstretch on the final lap, Busch veered to the bottom to avoid hitting Brad Keselowski, who was fading on the final two laps with a broken part on his car but made contact with the right-side of Logano’s car. In Turn 3, Logano got loose and bounced into Busch’s car, sending him spinning down onto pit road.
After the race, Kyle Busch got out of his car and proceeded to Logano’s car parked down pit road with the other top-five cars and punched him.
The fight lasted roughly 18 seconds before Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series officials broke it up and Busch was pulled out of the pile by NASCAR official Mike Lancaster (per Alex Hayden of MRN on Twitter). Logano was pulled out of the pile after just a few seconds by his PR rep Kyle Zimmerman.
The only noticeable injury sustained was a cut on Busch’s forehead, above his right eye.
“I got dumped,” Busch told Vince Welch of FOX Sports. “(Logano) Flat out drove straight into the corner and wrecked me”
Logano’s take was different from Busch’s.
“We were just racing hard there at the end,” Logano said. “I was underneath him on the backstretch and he tried to crash me into the corner getting underneath Brad there and at that point, I was just trying to get through the corner. I was sideways all the way through and get into him. Nothing intentional. I understand his frustration, he crashed. The same thing could have happened into 3 what he did to me.”
“There wasn’t much talking, there was a lot of swinging. I don’t know. I was racing hard there at the end with our Pennzoil Ford. Kyle and I usually race really well together,” Logano continued. “We usually never have any issues, and he tried to pin me down into the corner underneath Brad and we about crashed on entry. And then I was still trying to gather it up by the center and I was gonna spin out, so I’m trying to chase it up and he was there. It obviously wasn’t anything intentional, but obviously, he thinks that, so, I don’t know, we’ll get by.”
Steve O’Donnell, NASCAR Executive Vice President and Chief Racing Development Officer spoke about the altercation Monday morning during an appearance on the “Morning Drive” program on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio.
He stated that the competition department was reviewing video of the post-race incident and the on-track contact that led up to it.
“It’s certainly under review,” O’Donnell said. “We have to take everything, make sure we look at all the video, but just from our in assessment last night, as far as on-track I don’t think we saw anything that was intentional by any means. We have to have discussions with both drivers. I think our intention would be not to react unless we see something we haven’t seen yet.”
“It’s an emotional sport,” he went on to say, “and I think it shows exactly how much every position on the track means.”
