The Busch Light Clash lived up to its name.
NASCAR’s season-opening exhibition race was moved a day early to Saturday night due to heavy rains forecasted for Sunday, but it turned out to be an exciting race.
Pole-sitter Denny Hamlin won, but Joey Logano and Ty Gibbs dominated the race and the post-race headlines.
Logano was the leader at the halftime break and lined up on the outside of Gibbs in first for a restart with 10 laps to go.
JOEY LOGANO REVEALS THE SECRET MESSGE HE LEFT FOR RYAN BLANEY IN THE NASCAR CHAMPION’S JOURNAL
Gibbs then went wide out of turn two and pushed Logano up the track. The move allowed Hamlin to pass both of them from third and dropped Logano to sixth.
Logano would ultimately finish in fourth behind Hamlin, Kyle Busch and Ryan Blaney after a two-lap overtime shootout caused by a yellow flag that was brought out when Kyle Larson turned Gibbs’s car, leading to an 18th place finish for Gibbs.
After the race, Logano approached Gibbs by his trailer and the two had a heated exchange about the incident.
Exactly what was said couldn’t be heard on video of the verbal altercation, but Gibbs told Fox Sports that Logano was “just mad that I ran him up.”
Gibbs said it was hard to get heat into the tires on restarts and that, “I just got in there deep and washed up on them.”
“He just came in there and said that to me in a bunch of different words,” Gibbs said.
Logano told NASCAR, “he just used me up all the way to the wall. There’s a fine line of kind of pushing each other up a little bit, racing for a win and using me up with the history that he has with me is not a good idea for him.”
Logano and Gibbs had a memorable on-track battle at the Martinsville playoff race last year that included Logano turning Gibbs when the two were near the front, Gibbs brake checking Logano on the last lap and their cars coming into contact on the cool-down lap.
ELECTRIC NASCAR DEMO DELAYED BY RAIN
The NASCAR Cup Series returns to action on February 15 at the Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona Duels off the Daytona 500 weekend, with the marquee event scheduled for Feb. 18.