NASCAR RIVALRIES
Some Drivers Simply T
he first 28 races of the 2021 NASCAR
Cup Series season didn’t produce too many notable conflicts among competitors. But just as chillier fall temperatures rolled around, things suddenly turned hot on the race track. And it all started with Chase Elliott, Kevin Harvick and the first elimination race of the playoffs – hosted by Bristol Motor Speedway, appropriately known as Thunder Valley. After tangling memorably on the track and in the garage at the high-banked Tennessee short track’s annual night race, the two former Cup Series champions engaged in a back-andforth brouhaha that continued for multiple weeks and set the NASCAR world abuzz in anticipation of what would happen next. During the offseason, Harvick was still mad enough at Elliott to go on the popular Dale Jr. Download podcast and vent his frustrations to host Dale Earnhardt Jr. Specifically, Harvick was still miffed about how Elliott drove at Bristol. After cutting a tire and making an unscheduled pit stop necessitated by contact with Harvick, Elliott retaliated by racing Harvick especially hard in the final laps despite being laps down. Elliott’s aggression allowed his teammate – Hendrick Motorsports’ Kyle Larson – to catch and pass Harvick for the victory with four laps to go. Harvick went on to record his first winless season since 2009, and employees of StewartHaas Racing were denied the bonus they would normally receive for one of the organization’s drivers wining at Bristol. Harvick blamed Elliott for SHR employees missing out on this money. “In the end, he took hundreds of thousands of dollars out of everybody’s pocket,” Harvick told Earnhardt Jr. on The Download. “All the team guys were mad.” Then, Harvick added one more nugget, making it clear he and Elliott hadn’t worked out their differences. “There still needs to be another conversation before we start the next season,” Harvick said, alluding to the animated exchange he had with Elliott after the Bristol race. Harvick and Elliott were hardly the only drivers less than pleased with each other in
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POLE POSITION 2021
2021. In the next-to-last race, held at Martinsville Speedway, Denny Hamlin and Alex Bowman banged together while racing for the lead in the closing laps, resulting in Hamlin spinning and Bowman going on to take the win. Hamlin later expressed his displeasure with Bowman by calling the Hendrick driver “a hack” during a post-race interview and stopping his No. 11 car on the frontstretch to disrupt Bowman’s victory celebration. Bowman never apologized for wrecking Hamlin and sees no reason to apologize – or antagonize the Joe Gibbs Racing driver. “I’ve been getting pushed around and bullied for a long time, so I know if I say something back, it just turns into a shitstorm, right?” Bowman said during an exclusive interview with NASCAR Pole Position in late December. “It kind of builds up and then you start going back and forth with somebody, and it’s just not worth it. I would have been mad, too, if I were him (Hamlin) … but he stepped over the line and made it superpersonal after the race, but I also understand why he was mad. “So at that point, I feel like he made it superpersonal, I crashed him, I don’t feel like either of us owe each other anything. I feel like we’re kind of even at that point. He might not see it that way, but I think everything he said kind of erased me being sorry.” In that same race at Martinsville, former champs Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski also sparred, but their issue didn’t occur until the final lap while battling for second-place off Turn 4. Following their initial contact, the two collided again in Turn 1 on the cooldown lap, with Busch’s No. 18 Toyota spinning and Keselowski continuing. “I should beat the shit out of him right now is what I should do, but that doesn’t do me any good,” a steaming Busch later told a group of reporters on pit road. Martinsville wasn’t the first time Busch and Keselowski have ever clashed, either, so it’s likely their rivalry will continue – and perhaps even intensify – this season. And the same can be said for the other rifts that emerged in late 2021. Stay tuned. PHOTOGRAPHY: GETTY IMAGES
