NASCAR Hall of Famer Mark Martin said “I applaud” Kyle Busch’s actions after Sunday’s race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Before you react, let Martin explain.
“Kyle’s actions after the race, I applaud,’’ Martin said Wednesday on “The Morning Drive” on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I absolutely think that it is a disgrace to the sport to wreck a race car after the race is over. Nothing has made me more mad than to have somebody mad at me and run all over my car after the race is over. Totally uncalled for. You should handle your business man-to-man. Kyle in handling his business man-to-man, I approve of.
“Now, Joey didn’t have that coming in my opinion, but still rather than running over his race car after the race, I approve of handling your business, I always handled my business face-to-face, man-to-man, and I think it should be done that way.
“So there is some good, bad and ugly in that thing. In Joey’s account, the same thing. I don’t think he had a whipping coming. On his behalf, I will say one thing, anybody that ever doubted whether Joey would stand up for himself or not, got to see it. He didn’t have to think twice about climbing on Kyle. I thought that was interesting to see as well.
“Of course the ugly, these things turn into a gang pile with the crews. I understand that, but I wish they wouldn’t. When you are a crew guy, you believe in your driver so much that nobody better touch him. That’s the way the crew guys feel. I wish the guys could handle it face-to-face, man-to-man and leave the equipment out of it and leave the crews out of it, but at the end of the day it sure did make for a lot of excitement after the race, I will say that. I did approve of the attempt to handle things person-to-person. I would prefer to handle it without getting physical. Still at the end of the day it sure made for some excitement.’’
NASCAR had yet to announce Wednesday morning if there would be any penalties to either driver. Martin said neither should be penalized.
“I absolutely don’t think there should be punishment,’’ Martin told SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. “I don’t think we should condone physical (confrontations), but I certainly think you should be able to, either in private handle your business face-to-face and man-to-man. Even if it happens to get physical for some reason under these high emotional situations, I think that’s OK, and I think that trying to take that away wasn’t good for the sport.
“I know a lot of the fans want to see that emotion. You can see the emotion without having a fight, it can be more like a face-to-face argument kind of confrontation. I think it was good. Unfortunately, I think that Kyle’s emotions got the best of him because … Joey made a mistake on the race track, and I don’t think he should get hit in the face over making a mistake. I know I would have wound up getting beat up a lot of times if I got whipped for making a mistake. There’s a difference between making a mistake and doing something intentional.’’
Martin said he was never in a physical confrontation with a driver but told the story of how Juan Pablo Montoya made him angry one race and what happened.
“With Juan Pablo Montoya one time after a race, he ran down the side of my race car, which is fighting actions and I went after him, but I didn’t intend to hit him,’’ Martin said. “He’s bigger than me and probably would have clobbered me, but I went after him with a pretty aggressive way and was going to have a discussion about it.
“Lucky for me, I was able to follow him to his garage and get out of my car at the garage where the crews were. Unfortunately, what makes you even madder when you’re like in Kyle’s position and you’re going to confront the other driver is that the crew guys interfere with you even having a discussion.
“That really makes you mad because you’re mad already and you’re not even trying to have a fight, you just want to talk about it and air your frustration and the guys are standing in between you. I’m not bad-mouthing them. I appreciate that. I appreciate the fact that these team guys will march into a burning building for their driver. They believe so much and they have to, and I appreciate that, but it’s an unfortunate situation when you can’t confront the other driver without having to deal with the crew guys.’’