After their incident in the Feb. 6 Clash at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Ryan Blaney and Erik Jones told reporters Wednesday at Daytona 500 Media Day that the matter was settled.
However, one driver seemed more emphatic about that than the other.
Jones said Blaney hadn’t reached out to him since the incident. Blaney later confirmed he hadn’t.
“I guess it’s resolved,” Jones said. “I don’t know. I guess if I had a problem with someone, I’d talk to them. So, I guess it’s over.”
As for Blaney, he felt there’s nothing for the two to discuss.
“I don’t really have anything to talk to him about,” Blaney said. “I’m over it. I don’t know – it’s funny he thought I was supposed to apologize after I got fenced. Two people are going to think differently.
“No, I haven’t talked to him. I’m over it. It’s in the past and move on from it.”
DAYTONA 500 PRACTICE: McDowell leads first session
DAYTONA 500 PRACTICE: Blaney fastest in second session
In the second half of the Clash, Blaney’s car slowed on track with a broken right rear suspension after contact with Jones.
That brought out a caution with 36 laps to go. After Blaney took his car off track and climbed out, he threw his HANS device at Jones, who was still on track.
In their initial comments to Fox Sports, Blaney said that Jones “destroyed [him] for seventh” while Jones felt Blaney had brake-checked him and “[he] didn’t really appreciate that and showed it on the track.”
Jones went on to finish fourth. Blaney finished 17th after repairs.
When asked Wednesday if he was surprised that the usually cool Blaney got heated at him, Jones replied in the negative.
“The way I look at it, if I’m racing somebody and I brake checked them, I guess I’d expect to get wrecked,” Jones said. “It’s not like I meant to take the guy out of the race. I didn’t just intentionally ‘right rear’ him in the wall. Moved up the track and he got into the wall and broke a piece, unfortunately, that took him farther out of the race.
“He’s probably upset about that for sure. He was having a solid run. Obviously, we were kind of moving forward together. Frustrated – I don’t know. I wasn’t, I guess, shocked to see it at all. I knew he would probably be mad at about it. Just kind of waiting on it.”
