The playoffs opener in Darlington remained as nail-biting as the regular-season showdown at Daytona. If Daytona saw one of the most harrowing crashes of the season, Darlington was a battlefield ripped with cautions, a power outage, and a race that continued for more than four hours. However, the race seemed to be a replay of the race from the spring race of Darlington, as rivalries from the two Chevrolet teams intensified for the second time. 

It was Kyle Larson who was finally able to achieve redemption in Darlington, months after being wrecked out in the regular season race. The #5 Chevrolet driver held his ground till the chequered waved in the air and he entered the second stage of the playoffs. However, apparently, not all the HMS drivers had a memorable evening, as the team incurred a humongous loss on monetary terms.

Will the rivalry between Rick Hendrick and Justin Marks intensify after another Darlington feud?

If one rewinds back to the race at Darlington earlier in the season, one will surely remember how a favorable day was ruined for the Hendrick Motorsports speedster. The driver had fallen victim to Ross Chastain’s antics. Chastain took the blame for the wreck, but only after HMS owner Rick Hendrick issued a stern warning to Chastain, Trackhouse, and even their common manufacturer.

Fast-forwarding to September, the #1 Chevrolet stayed out of Kyle Larson’s way this time and was able to avert another controversy from brewing. The last time the two teams met each other in Darlington, the ensuing fiasco prevailed for weeks, with the Trackhouse star seemingly backing out. However, this time it was HMS that found itself at the receiving end for its conduct against Trackhouse Racing’s #99 driver, Daniel Suarez.

The incident occurred with just 49 laps to go when Alex Bowman aggressively tried to block Suarez twice. In the process of blocking Suarez, the #48 made contact with the wall and sustained heavy damage to the car, a probable estimate of the damage could amount to $500,000. 

However, the question that arises is whether the move made by Bowman was justified or not and whether the incident fanned another set of controversies between the two Chevrolet teams. Moreover, it was just a few months back that Rick Hendrick had demanded, “I don’t care, and I told Chevrolet that. If you wreck us, you’re going to get it back. If you don’t do it, they’ll run all over you,” after the Chastain fiasco.

Drawing from the same incident, it will be interesting to see if Trackhouse Racing owner Justin Marks demands the same treatment to their Chevrolet counterparts for dishing out a similar treatment to Daniel Suarez or chooses to turn a blind eye, owing to the stronghold of HMS in the paddock. 

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HMS driver tries to justify his actions after calling it a day at Darlington

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Commenting upon the incident, in the post-race interview, Alex Bowman expressed to NBC, “Obviously, it didn’t work out. He chose not to lift and to crash us. Every time I race [Suarez], he does something dumb, whether it’s his crew chief flipping me off on the way to the airport or any time I’m around him, he blocks me really aggressively. So that’s part of it sometimes and obviously, the block did not work out and looking back on it, I shouldn’t have done it.”

With nine more races left, it is to be seen how these two drivers engage and react to each other on track. Will the Larson-Chastain feud be substituted with the Bowman-Suarez fiasco, or will they shake hands and look forward to a fresher start?

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