A byproduct of Kyle Larson retaliating against Bubba Wallace at the end of the Busch Clash at the Coliseum was Ross Chastain exacting a measure of reprisal against Tyler Reddick after the checkered flag on Saturday night.
All racing around the 10th position, Chastain and Reddick were mixing it up with Brad Keselowski in an absolute dogfight of a battle on the tight quarter mile.
When Larson retaliated against Wallace on the final lap, for reasons detailed here, it stacked up everyone behind them and Reddick drilled Chastain as a result.
It wasn’t just about that as all the drivers around the top-10 were just bouncing off each other near the end of the race.
“I feel like, when that last wreck happened, he just drove through us,” Chastain told FOX Sports after the race. “Yeah, everybody ran into everybody. I got into [Michael] McDowell and hooked him. … I just felt like at the end that Tyler took advantage of the wreck ahead and pushed his way through.”
Reddick wasn’t entirely sure what specifically the animus was born from.
“A lot happened leading into that final corner,” Reddick told Frontstretch. “We’ll figure it out.”
Reddick said it was just a matter of timing on the stack-up and that he wouldn’t intentionally use up Chastain for a top-10 in an exhibition race.
“Going into 3, they start wrecking in front of us, they start checking up, and I think he was checking up for the wreck, he heard it, saw it before I did,” Reddick said. “By time I got the message, ‘hey, checkin’ up,’ I was going quite a bit faster than he was at that point.
“Yeah, we were running for 12th, 13th and there’s no point in wrecking someone or moving someone for that position. I like to think I’m not that guy so we’ll figure it out and see I upset him about.”
Chastain and McDowell
The caution that set-up the decisive restart, in which Hamlin drove by a tussling Joey Logano and Ty Gibbs, was actually created by McDowell spinning off contact from Chastain with 10 laps to go.
Chastain bounced off the wall before getting into McDowell and they talked it over, shook hands and ultimately laughed about it.
“It was 100 percent his fault,” McDowell told Frontstretch. “He was spinning his tires and bounced off the wall. Just came down and hooked us. I could hear him buzzing his tires.”
Was it water under the bridge?
“For an exhibition race,” he said.
Stenhouse and McDowell
Earlier in the race, under caution, McDowell and Stenhouse were door slamming each other. What was that about?
“He was just mad I got underneath him on the restart and … just racing,” McDowell said.
And Stenhouse?
“We talked afterwards and he said he was just really trying to finish 15th or 10th and I was like, ‘it’s an exhibition and it doesn’t matter where you finish unless you win.’ I told (John Hunter Nemechek too) that I went through the exhibition race here and you just don’t try to make people mad. They both saw it differently I guess.
“So I leave here a little mad and that’s part of it. I’m happy to make the race. I didn’t make it the first year. I didn’t make it the second year. It was cool to have enough speed to make the race and we’ll go on to Daytona. We have an off week and I’m just really looking forward to getting back to Daytona.”
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.