The race of the stars
The halfway point of the 2024 Cup Series regular season was celebrated as per tradition for NASCAR with the race of stars, the All Star Racewhich took place for the second consecutive year on the historic facility North Wilkesboro, in North Carolina. It is an exhibition event, which does not offer points for the championship but is still very important to the drivers, for the prestige and the million dollars which is up for grabs as a prize for the winner.
The winner this year was – for the second time in his career – the Penske team driver Joey Loganowho dominated the race with his Ford, spending 199 of the 200 laps in the lead.
Punches fly after the match
But what made the news, more than his triumph, was the brawl broke out after the match between the two-time Cup Series champion Kyle Busch and the winner of the 2023 Daytona 500 Ricky Stenhouse Jr. The face-off between the two ended – in true NASCAR style – with a tough one fistfight. The first to attack his rival was Stenhouse, enraged at having been attacked sent unceremoniously against the wall from his colleague already on the second lap of the race.
Busch’s, in turn, seemed to be a ‘retaliation’ for a particularly aggressive maneuver carried out by the driver of car #47 immediately after the start: a three-wide overtaking carried out to the detriment of himself and Denny Hamlin who gave the go-ahead in tough comparison, on and off the track. After Stenhouse punched Busch, the two were separated by their respective entouragesbut the impression is that other sparks could be seen next Sunday in Charlotte, on the occasion of the Coca-Cola 600.
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