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CONCORD, N.C. — Two of NASCAR’s top drivers were adamant that oil not cleaned up from a previous incident led to each of them hitting the wall in separate incidents during Sunday’s Bank of America 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Both Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Kyle Busch bounced off the outside wall shortly after Justin Allgaier had brought out the day’s seventh caution flag.
“We all hit the wall,” Earnhardt Jr. said after the Hendrick Motorsports driver finished 28th in the opening race of the Contender Round of this year’s Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup. “I hit the wall, the 2 (of Brad Keselowski) hit the wall, then we went another lap. I pitted, a bunch of other guys hit the wall.
“There was oil down there. It wasn’t speedy dry (used to absorb fluids put down on the racing surface). I’ve raced this (expletive) for 20 years, I know what oil and speedy dry is. We hit fluid, flew into the freaking wall hard. That’s not speedy dry. There was oil up there.”
Earnhardt was already running outside the top 25 after an earlier incident had put his No. 88 Chevrolet in the wall.
Allgaier’s entry began slowing with smoke trailing out the rear of the No. 51 HScott Motorsports entry on Lap 182. Earnhardt said it might have been a “blown hose” that sprayed fluids across the track and that shadows cast by billboards ringing outside of the track could have made it difficult to see.
“(Expletive), man, guys hit the fence, what do you want me to do?” Earnhardt said. “I hit the (expletive) wall. I know I hit oil. I hit it. I promise. I’ll argue with (NASCAR) all day long because I know I’m right. They won’t argue about it. … They shouldn’t want to argue about that. A lot of cars hit the wall down there.”
Busch’s Toyota eventually slipped up and into the fence in the turn as well, continuing a day of misfortune for the Joe Gibbs Racing driver.
“You now, can’t pass anybody — single-lane race track and then you put oil on the top lane to try to make anything happen and then you put yourself in the fence, so thanks to NASCAR for cleaning that up,” Busch said after finishing 20th.
With two races remaining in the Contender Round, at Kansas Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway, Busch sits 10th and Earnhardt 11th in points. Only the top eight will advance to the three-race Eliminator Round (Martinsville, Texas and Phoenix), with a chance to be one of the final four to battle for the championship at Homestead-Miami Speedway in November.
Brad Keselowski (Team Penske) finished ninth and holds the No. 8 points position, 10 points ahead of Busch and 19 ahead of Earnhardt.
Richard Buck, NASCAR Managing Director of the Sprint Cup Series, said afterward that officials “listen to our drivers and our spotters; we get calls all day long. We’ve got spotters around the track, officials, clean-up and stuff and we’ll make the rounds over the radio.
“In that instance we actually had men on the ground walking that high groove and they couldn’t see anything,” he said.
Caution car driver Brett Bodine and official Buster Auton were also evaluating the condition of the racing surface in the area in question.
“So we got the reports and we looked everywhere,” Buck said, “including putting people on the ground walking the area where they said the oil was, and there was no oil.
“Sometimes, with some of these lubricants … there is some staining to the track. We’ll go back and do a double-check on that just to make sure; we did that today and we feel absolutely confident that there was no oil up in that very top groove or down below.”
Race winner Joey Logano (Team Penske) said there was radio chatter among his crewmen about possible oil on the track, but that he had no issues.
“I was warned,” Logano said. “My spotter did a great job warning me that people were talking about it, so when someone comes over the radio and says ‘Hey, they’re talking about oil in the middle of the race track,’ then you probably shouldn’t run in the middle of the race track.”
Sunday’s race was run a day later than originally scheduled due to rain that washed out all on-track activity on Saturday.