What started as a heated discussion devolved into a punching match.
As Denny Hamlin celebrated his victory, Sunday, in the Advent Health 400, Noah Gragson approached Ross Chastain to chew him out. He grabbed him and the talk continued, until Chastain connected with his left cheek.
“There’s no talking to the guy,” Gragson told Bob Pockrass of FOX Sports, after the scuffle.
It ceased just as quickly as it started, after multiple officials swarmed them both to break up the fight.
“Sucks that they all get involved,” he said. “Just let us two work it out and finish it off.”
This stems from an incident during the race, in which Chastain put Gragson into the wall off Turn 4. Based on Gragson’s comments, post-race, it happened somewhere between Lap 200 and 210.
“Yeah, definitely crowded him up off of (Turn) 4, and he took a swipe at us in 3, and then he came down and grabbed a hold of me, and a very big man once told me we have a no-push policy here at Trackhouse,” Chastain said.
Gragson adds his name to the growing list of drivers displeased with Chastain’s aggressive style of racing. Most famous of which is Hamlin, who spent several laps, last season, at Gateway to put on some fun-dumb racing with him. Then again at The Clash and climaxed a few weeks later at Phoenix.
As for Gragson, it wasn’t the first time, either.
“He did the same thing after Talladega on the plane and nothing happened,” Chastain told Jeff Gluck of The Athletic.
Only this time, Gragson was tired of nobody confronting Chastain.
“The guy just runs into everyone,” he said. “When you’ve got guys like Chase Elliott saying, ‘Go beat his ass,’ everyone is sick and tired of him and nobody has the balls to go up and get him.”
What repercussions this leads to for Chastain, down the road, only time will tell. For now, however, he leaves Kansas with a 27-point lead over Christopher Bell.
