Andrew Grady sets the record straight about chaotic brawl that led to CARS Tour suspension

CARS Tour driver Andrew Grady is setting the record straight about his suspension after an incident that happened at Hickory Motor Speedway. Grady shared more details on the fight he was involved in with series found Jack McNelly last month.

“I’ll say this … a CARS Tour official put hands on my mother, left bruises on her and that same official choked me,” Grady said, per Matt Weaver of Short Track Scene. “I pushed that official off me.” The official accused by Grady was McNelly, who also worked Turn 4 and the restart Zone of the race.

During the race, Grady was involved in an incident where he crashed hard into the backstretch of the track off the nose of driver Landon Huffman. After the race on the cool down lap, Grady threw a chunk of dirt collected from his crash into Huffman’s cockpit. Grady and Huffman exchanged words and then a fight broke out around their pit areas. As the fight began Grady shoved McNelly to the ground.

Grady was suspended for the next three CARS Tour events and was fined $1,000. Gage Painter of Chad Bryant Racing was fined $500 for his involvement in the altercation.

“Anything that happened between the official and I, that happened, but it was made worse because of the other team that jumped into it when it wasn’t any of their business,” Grady said. “It wouldn’t have blown up more if that hadn’t happened.”

Andrew Grady takes responsibility for his actions

Grady also took responsibility for his actions after the crash. “That was heat of the moment,” he said. “I was mad. This was a brand new race car that now is torn up on every corner. I just felt like Landon could have done something different on the backstretch to where that wouldn’t have happened.

“But I grew up in an era where my heroes, when they got crashed and they were mad, they threw things under caution and they sometimes fought. To me, that’s just part of the sport but I also respect that it’s something that CARS Tour doesn’t like and they have to take action against.”

Grady missed the race on Saturday and will not compete in the race at Ace Speedway on Aug. 9 and Wake County Speedway on Aug. 24. He said being suspended for the two additional races was unfair since he accused McNelly of putting his hands on him and his mother.

“I had nine pounds of grass in my car after doing some landscaping for Hickory Motor Speedway and I felt like I needed to express that I was mad about it to Landon,” Grady said. “As I did that, here came that official cussing me out, grabbing me by the throat and my mom gets pushed and I just want people to understand that side of it.”