After the race, #2-Brad Keselowski and ninth-place finisher #11-Denny Hamlin traded insults on pit road, as NASCAR officials and their crews kept them apart in the wake of a late race incident between their two cars. Keselowski clipped Hamlin’s rear bumper on the cool-down lap, then hit Kenseth’s Toyota with his Ford on pit road after the race.
After sustaining collateral damage on pit road during the melee, #14-Tony Stewart backed into Keselowski’s Ford, crumpling the nose of the car. Keselowski insisted it was Kenseth’s car and not his #2 Ford that bumped Stewart’s Chevy.
“I rubbed into the #20 (Kenseth), and I think he gassed up and ran into Tony, and I don’t think Tony knew what was going on,” Keselowski said. “He’s upset, and he has every right to be. His car was tore up. There was a whole lot of other stuff going on. I’m sure when he sees the whole situation, he’ll understand.”
Kenseth, whose #20 Toyota had been damaged by contact from Keselowski’s car on a restart with 63 laps left, jumped Keselowski as he was walking between haulers in the garage, and the drivers scuffled before being separated.
“I had my HANS (head and neck restraint) off and my seat belts off and everything,” Kenseth said of the hit from Keselowski on pit road. “He clobbered me at 50 (mph). And the access we have around here… the race is over, trying to come back to pit road… If you want to talk about it as a man, do that, but to try and wreck someone on the race track, come down pit road with other cars and people standing around with seat belts off and drive in the side of me-it’s inexcusable. There is no excuse for that. He’s a champion. He’s supposed to know better than that.”
Hamlin also had some harsh words for the 2012 champion.
“There’s a corner there, so you have to back off, and he just plowed into us,” Hamlin said. “He’s just out of control. He’s desperate, obviously, and it’s either four or five of us are wrong or he’s wrong, because he’s pissed off everyone. Just disappointing — but we’re trying to get in this deal. We’re sitting in a decent spot, but we’ve lost six spots or so with the last restart when he ran into us and knocked us up the track. That was unfortunate. Matt (Kenseth) was nearly out of his car and he just plowed into Matt and then ran into Tony (Stewart) and then went in through the garage and cleared out transmissions and did burnouts in the garage.”
