Two on-track incidents see Poole get parked, called to hauler at Iowa
NEWTON, Iowa — One of the most famous quotes from the iconic baseball movie “The Sandlot” goes as follows: “Heroes get remembered, but legends never die.”
If NASCAR XFINITY Series rookie Brennan Poole had been in the film, perhaps it might’ve gone a little something like this: “Heroes get remembered … as the driver who you need to pay back once you get back out on the track.”
The HScott Motorsports with Chip Ganassi driver was black-flagged and parked in the garage for retaliation from an earlier incident with J.J. Yeley – who he later expressed his adoration for — in the 3M 250 at Iowa Speedway.
“(Yeley’s) kind of a hero to me … Hate that it happened between me and JJ,” Poole said in the garage area after he’d been taken off the track. “He’s a guy I looked up to a lot when I was racing quarter-midgets. … Just tough racing. Just a little bummed it happened between me and him. Just unfortunate. I really felt like we had a shot at it; we’ll never know now.”
A few minutes later, Poole expanded on his comments and appeared to indicate that the second incident on Lap 151 — which put Yeley’s No. 28 into the wall, crunching the hood and ending the veteran driver’s day – was more than just rough racing.
It was retaliation.
“He just deliberately crashed me like five laps into the race when there’s 245 laps left. There’s no sense in that,” Poole said before heading to the NASCAR hauler to speak with officials. “It costs us a lot of money to be out here. DC Solar is putting everything on the line to build a brand. I’m trying to make myself known in this sport so I can stay here and then one of my heroes just deliberately crashed me five laps into the race. Just doesn’t make sense.
“I feel like it’s pretty common sense to know that you’ve got 245 to go, like, ‘What are you doing?’ So we fixed the car, I got back to him and we just got into it. Just part of racing. Hate it happened between me and JJ but it’s just how it goes sometimes.”
In these situations, the drivers involved rarely see it in the same light, and Sunday was no different.
Yeley was firm in saying that early on when the initial contact happened in the early stages of the race, his Toyota Camry just got loose off of Turn 2 and he “tried to tuck it behind him and just barely clipped him. Obviously nothing intentional. I’m not just going to wreck somebody on Lap 15. It’s just a stupid thing to do.
“Obviously he was upset and instead of just talking to us like a man after the race, he came back out there and took a good finish away from a guy with a small team,” said Yeley, who finished 34th. “We don’t have a lot of cars and obviously he’s got no issue unloading another bullet for next week. Very furious. Hopefully NASCAR gets a hold of him before I do.”
A NASCAR spokesperson said after the race Sunday that there would be no penalty to Poole for his actions Sunday.
In what was a very aggressive race overall, the Yeley/Poole incident still felt especially odd and out of place. The duo each said positive and negative things about each other.
“I don’t know (if that’s just racing). I’ve raced him pretty clean throughout the year,” Yeley added. “I even congratulated him at Texas because we raced all night long together and had no issues. I thought he did a fantastic job. It’s racing, but sometimes you understand that stuff happens. And again, when it’s Lap 15 and we’re back in 20th, you have to understand that it’s nothing intentional. It’s very disappointing. I haven’t been in that situation in a very long time where someone wants to come get you.
“For a guy like that, as a rookie, to go out there and do that thing kind of … it sucks.
“The shoe will be on the other foot before too long.”