Michael McDowell wrecks Ricky Stenhouse in heated post-race clash

In the final run of the NASCAR Cup race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, a heated battle was unfolding for the race win, but also near the rear of the top 20. Ricky Stenhouse Jr and Michael McDowell spent several laps dive-bombing one another, making contact, and even hitting the wall as they fought for position.

At one point, Stenhouse shoved McDowell off into the corner in Turn 1 and then tried to pull off an unsuccessful slide job. That was essentially the end the of their on-track battle.

After the back-and-forth fight for position, McDowell went on to finish 19th while Stenhouse fell back to 23rd.

On the cool-down lap, Stenhouse chased down McDowell and started door-slamming him up the track. Riley Herbst had to lift to avoid being caught up in the game of bumper tag.

McDowell returned the favor as they went back down the track, and Stenhouse then brake-checked the Spire Motorsports driver. McDowell then aimed for his right-rear, and spun Stenhouse up the track before carrying on.

The best part of the entire post-race clash was that Brad Daugherty, who is the co-owner at Stenhouse’s Hyak Motorsports team, was part of the USA Sports show and saw it for the first time live on on air.

“Hey, hold on, what in the world?” reacted Daugherty, laughing. “What are we doing? After the race! Oh no … don’t tear it up now!”

On pit road, the two drivers shared a far more cordial encounter after parking bumper-to-bumper, talking things out with Stenhouse leaning into the window of McDowell’s car. No punches were thrown, and it didn’t seem like either driver was overly aggravated at that point.

Tags: