@nascarcasm: NASCAR Beefdown, 2024 Playoffs — who’s got beef?

Before we head into the final stretch of the 2024 NASCAR season, let us take a quick look at the many, many beefs that have arisen.

You all remember the incident earlier this year at Darlington Raceway. After the race, we’ve never seen Chris Buescher that mad. He didn’t get into Tyler Reddick’s face because he’d have to squat down a little bit to do that because of the height difference, but he did go off, Prosper, Texas-style. Reddick, to his credit, took all the blame and apologized profusely right there on track. It’s a wise move by Reddick to diffuse the situation as soon as possible, but Buescher, who missed out on the playoffs, may not forget. 

The Kyle Larson/Denny Hamlin feud is the beef that both drivers always say they’re "ready to move past" but then a couple weeks later they somehow make each other mad again. It’s enjoyable, because these are two of the best cars in 2024. They both have the potential to make the Championship 4 and the more drivers who have a tense relationship among those four the better. One can picture these two running into each other at driver intros, and one saying “We good?” and the other saying “Yeah” despite the fact that they both know that’ll be inaccurate by the end of the first stage. Theirs is the "It’s complicated" of feuds.

We know that neither of these drivers earned a spot in this year’s playoffs. However, we’d also like to end any speculation that it may reignite during the playoffs. Based on the penalty, the going rate is $75,000 a punch. I doubt either driver is interested in getting into a full donnybrook that could get really, really expensive. That said, if these two DO get into each other on track and after the race one of them gives an interview during which he shares his CashApp username, WATCH OUT.

Over in the Craftsman Truck Series, we have noticed the seeds of a feud between Christian Eckes and Corey Heim. These two are Championship 4 favorites, having delivered wins all season. But it was at Indianapolis Raceway Park where an on-track skirmish ratcheted things up a notch. We all followed Heim as he went to confront Eckes, wondering what would unfold. Punches? Profanity? Actually two dudes having a discussion and using their hands as cars to describe what happened. Keep an eye out.

As in we’re bundled up in our Columbia winter jackets in order to withstand the icy gusts of wind from hell that blew when Hamlin and Logano wound up on the same side of a conflict. That said, the example that was set from this incident seems clear cut, so this one seems to have lasted a weekend and has been resolved. This is unless there’s a Final-Final Appeals Officer we don’t know about.

It seems like eons ago that Joey and Ty were having a fiery dialogue on the lift gate following the Busch Light Clash. Maybe it’s all the time that has passed that made folks forget about this one. Or maybe it’s because after the All-Star Race, something way, way more intense happened on a lift gate. This one hasn’t flared back up, but it hasn’t resolved itself either. Thankfully next year’s Clash will be at Bowman Gray Stadium, which is renowned for being a peaceful venue largely free of incident or conflict.

In case you didn’t remember, Kyle Busch absolutely LECTURED Christopher Bell after COTA. It was intense. Drill sergeant to cadet. Bell stood there and took it. It’s entirely possible that Bell understood Busch’s ire or had caught wind of how expensive it was to hit Kyle Busch. But if you forgot about this one, keep it in mind -- we have a pair of road courses in the playoffs where Bell could accidentally do whatever it is that made Kyle upset. We personally don’t know how you can stay mad at Bell, the driver who perpetually looks 17 years old.

Martin Truex Jr. spent 2024 with a firehose of adversity aimed directly at his face. If he wasn’t having passive-aggressive arguments with crew chief James Small on the radio, he was mad at what felt like a different driver every week. And if he wasn’t mad at another driver, he was creeping toward the finish line at Sonoma at .0004 mph while the entire field passed him because, well, THEY had fuel. It’s Martin’s final full-time year in NASCAR, and despite the headwinds, he somehow earned a playoff spot. But we still don’t know what fresh hell the world has in store for MTJ the final 10 races. The feud isn’t over.