ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — Sage Karma called Noah Gragson’s retaliation “ridiculous.” Gragson called being hit three times by Karam on Saturday “ridiculous.”
Their on-track feud led to a 13-car crash during Saturday’s Xfinity Series race at Road America and accusations of how each races.
“Unfortunately, he let his emotions get the best of him today,” Karam told NBC Sports’ Kim Coon. “I’ve seen that with him. He walks around like he’s like the big man on campus around here and everything, and then he does stuff like that. It’s just not a good role model that he is.”
After finishing eighth, Gragson said of Karam: “I don’t know if he’s not used to stock car driving, but it seems like the open-wheel stuff, you can’t really go in there side-by-side and hit somebody in the door number when they’re turning and wrecking them and running them off on exit.
“Maybe he thinks that because we have fenders, you can do that. I don’t know the deal. It is what it is, and you saw the result.”
Both were upset with each other for contact that led to Gragson turning into Karam and wrecking him in Turn 4. NASCAR did not penalize either driver.
“I don’t know what (Gragson) was doing,” Karam said after exiting the infield care center. “I got on the inside of him the lap before going into Turn 5 - made a move on him. He just divebombed me back into Turn 1. I got back underneath him in Turn 3 on the next lap.
“He was slower than a lot of people around us from before that. I just wanted to get in front of him, get around him. Then … I got into the side of (Gragson’s car) at the exit of 3. Then, just down the straightaway, he just flat out turned into me. It was totally unnecessary. He put a lot of drivers at risk.”
Said Gragson: “Just got run over. That’s one thing if you’re faster than someone. I pointed AJ (Allmendinger) by all day. (Karam) would just throw it off in there and run you off the racetrack in the corner and door you and run you off the track.
“Finally after the third time, I’m over it. It’s obviously not the ideal situation for him and his team, but for three times I’m done with it.”
#NASCAR … Here is what Noah Gragson said about his incident with Sage Karam … pic.twitter.com/6AxwMIkkvy
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) July 2, 2022
#NASCAR … Here is what Sage Karam said about racing with Noah Gragson and the contact by Gragson … pic.twitter.com/EOqTlwkvM5
— Dustin Long (@dustinlong) July 2, 2022