There has been a lot of talk regarding Friday’s unruly Craftsman Truck Series Grand Finale. More so because of the on-track tussle between Tricon Garage’s star driver Corey Heim and Niece Motorsports star Carson Hocevar. And the major highlight of that 150-lap-long slugfest came with barely 30 laps remaining in the race.
Carson Hocevar and Corey Heim exchanged blows with each other and ultimately knocked themselves out of contention. The commotion got heightened to the magnitude that NASCAR had to call for not one, not two, not three, but four overtime restarts! According to Tony Stewart, it was an absolute mess. Even Kenny Wallace agreed. Although he loves Carson Hocevar in person, he feels like Hocevar shouldn’t have raced the way he did.
Kenny Wallace echoes Tony Stewart’s words on the actual nature of Truck Series races
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Saturday night was way different from that of Friday. Cole Custer won the Xfinity Series championship at Phoenix Raceway and he did it without wrecking anyone. The Xfinity Series race needed just one overtime restart. Needless to say, it was miles apart from Friday’s disaster.
Stewart-Haas Racing owner Tony Stewart did not hold back from vehemently thrashing the Truck Series drivers during the Xfinity post-race presser. Stewart said, “That was an ‘S’ show last night. The scary part, I had conversations with people today about it, and what scares me is these kids watch that and think that’s what they’re supposed to do.”
Kenny Wallace agreed. He did admit that it was indeed, an “S show”. In a recent episode of ‘The Kenny Wallace show’, the veteran NASCAR ex-driver said, “The Truck race was a s**t show. I agree with Tony Stewart. Don’t race like that. Listen, I know Carson Hocevar is a lover, is a good guy but goes into 1, bam! Goes around the corner, goes down the backstretch and goes, you know, going to take air off or whatever. He done got pass clean.”
Kenny Wallace also added that although everyone will forget about what went down by the end of the year, the race was still “God awful.” Interestingly, Smoke also mentioned that there is a lack of respect not just in the truck drivers but in races that start right from the beginner box level.
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It’s not surprising that NASCAR is a highly competitive sport. These days, there are parents who want their children to pursue a career in NASCAR. Even veteran Cup Series drivers like Kyle Busch and Kevin Harvick are no exception. However, Tony Stewart felt like these kids are learning from bad examples.
Although NASCAR doesn’t promote wrecking each other, it does demand a certain magnitude of contact as the cars run three or even four wide at times. That being said, there is a fine line between hard racing and dirty racing. And watching these young Truck Series drivers, the future racers might pick up on what they should not do rather than what they should do on the track.
Tony Stewart explained that one could be respectful even while racing door-to-door. And unfortunately, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series has none of the respect that Tony Stewart so earnestly preached.
“You go to Go Kart races and kids’ parents are fighting because one kid’s dumping another kid because that’s what they see on TV,” said Tony Stewart with regret, adding, “Tonight was a great example that, that’s not how you have to race. You can race clean, you can race door-to-door, you can race hard but you can race each other with respect and I think that the Truck Series has zero percent amount of it.”
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Majority of the industry voices seem to be of the opinion that what went down in the Truck Series race was wrong. What do you think? Do you agree with Tony Stewart and Kenny Wallace? Let us know in the comments below!
Read more: Tony Stewart Gets Dead Serious; Has “Bad News” for Hendrick Motorsports, Joe Gibbs Racing & Co.