[media-credit name=”Brad Keppel” align=”alignright” width=”225″]
[/media-credit]Tempers flared hotter than the Kansas sun after the Camping World Truck Race on Saturday. With rumors and stories about a wild altercation between legendary car owner Richard Childress and driver Kyle Busch. The stories appeared to grow in intensity from the time the story broke until this morning when everyone returned to the track.
There wasn’t a black eye as far as I could see for Busch, but he was wearing his normal vision sun glasses. Although when he went into the NASCAR truck he was not wearing them. He was in pretty good humor for someone who was punched by a 65 year old man who is significantly larger than he is. No one will say absolutely for certain that some of the extreme stories that have been reported are true. Everyone does agree on one thing however, that is that.at least one punch a piece was thrown. I attempted to ask Kyle Busch about the incident and he said,”You can ask me a question as long as you are not asking about yesterday.”
Coach Gibbs was the first to go into the NASCAR truck. He was followed shortly by Kyle and then approx 15 minutes later by Richard Childress.The entire meeting took approx 15 minutes with all parties declining comment on their exit from the truck. Coach Gibbs did say he would have a statement later on today.
If I may be blunt and honest, There have been a lot of liberties taken here with this story. Richard Childress of late has lost a lot of man hours to fixing equipment that Kyle Busch has been involved in tearing up. Man hours equal money. I doubt that Richard Childress is hurting for money but to spend it unnecessarily is frustrating to have to spend it.
Also if you stop and look at it RCR cars or trucks have been involved in more incidents with Busch than any other team. Combine that with the heat and humidity here. Combine it then again with the frustration of wrecks and mechanical issues and you have the recipe for disaster and aggression. Now I am not making excuses for Childress if he threw the first punch, then he is responsible and should at least get what the drivers would have gotten for the same behavior. He obviously did by accounts throw the first punch. My real issue with that is it was apparently pre-meditated as he removed jewelery and handed it to Austin Dillion. It appears, and appearances are sometimes deceiving, that he intended to spark the physical altercation.
NASCAR issued the following statement at approximately 930AM.
“NASCAR has reviewed the incident involving Richard Childress and Kyle Busch after the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series race Saturday at Kansas Speedway. We have met with all parties involved and have determined what happened yesterday is unacceptable and will not be tolerated by NASCAR
Richard Childress’s actions were not appropriate and fell short of the standard we expect of owners in this sport. We have met with Childress this morning and made our position very clear to him. Further, we expect he will make it clear to all in his organization to ensure this situation does not escalate any further. We will announce our actions regarding this incident Monday.
Kyle Busch remains on probation with NASCAR and we continue to watch his actions carefully. However, we have determined that Kyle’s involvement in this incident does not violate his probation and no further action is required.”
Mike Helton made it clear that there were restrictions on Richard Childress as far as where he can and can’t be for this race. He didn’t give out any specifics except to say that the teams required leadership for this weekend and he would be allowed to stay at the track with restrictions.
Helton also stated that they would make further decisions on penalties and actions this week perhaps sooner than they normally would.
