There was a midweek NASCAR race for the first time (in the Cup Series—NASCAR’s version of the major leagues) since…well…I do not know. Not an expert, ok?
It was the second race in four days at Darlington, and it ended with twenty laps remaining due to rain. There also may have been a rain delay before/during the race. Full disclosure, I didn’t watch. But I kept tabs on the latter half on Twitter, if it counts for anything, and if you’re here reading about NASCAR, you don’t really care whether there was a rain delay.
Who Won:
Denny Hamlin won. It’s his second victory of the year, so it doesn’t change who’s in the playoffs, but it does give him an extra boost in playoff points and, I mean, winning’s fun, right? Good for Denny. Funny facemask, too, but wear one of these too often and you might kill someone, or at least be suspected of doing so:
Who Lost:
Everybody else, but the biggest losers were as follows:
Clint Bowyer
Bowyer’s one of the older drivers on the circuit. Veteran. Makes the playoffs fairly consistently, but hasn’t won a championship. He led most of the night before getting into the wall during the third stage and losing a tire (meaning, ‘the tire went flat which caused him some damage,’ not, ‘he had to drive the rest of the race on three tires’). Don’t remember exactly where he finished, but it was somewhere in the middle of the field, which is disappointing, but I’d imagine one could spin this as an encouraging night.
Kyle Busch
Kyle Busch finished in second place. Kyle Busch, if you don’t know, is one of the best current drivers. He’s also a dick. A self-proclaimed dick, which takes the edge off—he’s not pretending to be anything he’s not—but still, a dick. Kyle Busch finishing in second place doesn’t make him one of the biggest losers. What makes him one of the biggest losers is how he got up to second place. Right at the end…this happened:
Chase Elliott, for context, is NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, and I capitalized that because it’s an actual award voted upon by the fans, making it arguably the most accurate award in sports. Busch was immediately apologetic and made no excuses besides saying he made an unintentional mistake, but the fact remains that he did a big no-no, and he did it to NASCAR’s Most Popular Driver, who responded thusly:
Not a great moment for Busch. But he’ll be fine.
Chase Elliott
Chase Elliott will also be fine, and he definitely didn’t lose any fans, on the aggregate, for flipping off Busch. It was the perfect response to the situation, which happened right before the race was called due to rain, and the video of it is a dark horse candidate to become a meme.
As was said, Elliott will be fine. He and Busch will probably get their wins at some point down the line, and while every bit helps as far as playoff points go, it’s kind of like baseball in that some things just aren’t going to break a driver’s way.
Next Up: ???
I think I know what’s up next, but I thought the question marks would be funny. We’ll have a preview on the site whenever it happens. Which is Sunday. I think.
Oh, Last Thing:
There was a fox:
It was better than ok.
