Just when David Gravel started to secure a stronghold over the early World of Outlaws championship picture, circumstances pulled him right back to his closest pursuers.
Gravel was involved in an incident and subsequent disagreement with Buddy Kofoid with 13 laps to go in Friday night’s race at Paducah International Raceway. It happened when Kofoid carried a big run down the backstretch into a slider that intended to overtake Gravel and Bill Balog for second.
Balog attempted a crossover on Kofoid but turned right into Gravel. That contact sent Gravel onto the path of Brock Zearfoss and sent both of their cars tumbling.
Under the red, Gravel left his destroyed car and ran a sprint down to Kofoid, where they exchanged words on the matter.
It was the first DNF of the year for Gravel, the championship runner-up from the past two seasons, and it shrank his points lead from 48 over 10-time champion Donny Schatz to just 16. Gio Scelzi went from 72 points back to 38.
Gravel lost the championship to Brad Sweet, now a co-owner and contender on the High Limit Series, in part to the number of DNFs.
It was a costly night for Gravel.
Meanwhile, for his part, Kofoid finished on the podium and didn’t feel like Gravel had a legitimate gripe. There was more to the story, as the two had a run-in last week at Federated Auto Parts I-55 Speedway, and he felt more remorse for that ordeal than on Friday.
“Yeah, I restarted sixth and went to fifth at the flag stand and they split and I just threw a big diamond and got to Carson (Macedo) and David down the backstretch, had a good run on Bill, and slid Bill and I don’t know what happened after that. I don’t have a rear view mirror.
“I’m not really sure why David was mad. He tried to run me over four different times and did and that’s probably why he gave himself a flat right rear under yellow. I apologized for last week but I’m not going to apologize for this. I didn’t run over Bill. I’m not the one who tried to run me over so, just trying to move on, keep racing.”
Sprint Car and Midget veteran Kevin Swindell thought it was just a case of hard racing when he took to the topic on X and Gravel mostly conceded with a caveat.
Veteran Sprint racer Danny Dietrich felt like it was a Midget racer move from the two-time USAC racer.
All told, the World of Outlaws has a much closer championship battle again in advance of its only 2024 Indiana visit with a night at Haubstadt’s Tri-State Speedway on Saturday night.
Updated championship standings:
David Gravel
Donny Schatz -16
Giovanni Scelzi -38
Logan Schuchart -58
Carson Macedo -64
Michael Kofoid -106
Sheldon Haudenschild -142
Bill Balog -202
Brock Zearfoss -274
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.