Wild, wild scenes
There were ugly scenes in Virginia as teenage NASCAR drivers Ty Gibbs and Sam Mayer were involved in a post-race brawl on Friday.
The two drivers were involved in a violent outbreak after a fierce battle for second place, which left Mayer with a black eye and bruising to his face after taking off his helmet.
The brawl started as the two drivers battled for second place
Both drivers made contact with each other at Turn four, forcing Gibbs into the wall. He then later appeared to deliberately rear-end Mayer during the cool down lap.
Following the end of the race, Gibbs approached and confronted Mayer, exchanging words before the former then shoved his rival and walked away.
Angered by what had happened, Mayer then walked towards Gibbs, taking his helmet off, and both drivers began to shove each other.
Gibbs then began to throw several punches in the direction of Mayer before the pair were separated by the officials – however both had managed to land significant blows on each other.
When asked about the incident, Gibbs explained that he just wanted to speak to Mayer before the tensions boiled over.
THE BOYS ARE THROWING DOWN pic.twitter.com/Ht9d574K80
— NASCAR Xfinity (@NASCAR_Xfinity) April 9, 2022
The two both had different sides of the story to explain
“I tried to talk to [Mayer], and then he got up in my face, and at that point, we’ve got to start fighting,” he said.
“We got put in a bad position there, and the only thing I’m mad about is that the 1 [Mayer] didn’t have anything or wasn’t going to get past the 16 [AJ Allmendinger] there, and then I got hit in the left rear.
“It’s just frustrating, and I got driven into the fence again, but I was on the other side of it last week. It’s just part of it.”
Meanwhile Mayer accused Gibbs of being “scared” of him.
“It’s kind of funny because he walked up to me, I had my helmet off already, and he kept his helmet on,” he responded.
“So obviously he was scared about something, or he had in his mind to throw a punch the whole time. So that’s on him, not me. I’ll talk to him if he wants to, but I’m fine. I couldn’t care less.
“He’s going to put the bumper to everybody else in the garage and expect nothing in return. That doesn’t make any dang sense.
“So, I’m just going to do it to him because that’s what short-track racing is all about — unless it’s to him, I guess. He can throw all the punches he wants; they’re weak as hell, so doesn’t bother me. I didn’t feel a thing.”
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