Brad Keselowski, Michael Waltrip react to Chase Elliott's suspension
Brad Keselowski and Michael Waltrip provided some interesting opinions on Chase Elliott’s controversial suspension.
First off, Keselowski had a front-row seat for the incident, as he was right next to Elliott and Denny Hamlin when the former spun the other. During an appearance on NASCAR Race Hub, the former NASCAR champion weighed in on the situation.
“I did, I had too close of a seat,” laughed Keselowski. “I was right there, and oh my goodness. First off, it happened really, really fast. One moment they were kind of bouncing off each other, the next moment they were hooking each other and wrecked in the wall. … I was lucky to get through this. … Major slide action there. But this could’ve been even worse than it was. When I came by a lap later, and saw Denny Hamlin’s marks, all I could think was, ‘Oh my goodness, he must’ve hit a ton.’ So I’m glad that he’s okay.
“But from NASCAR’s perspective, this is a really difficult situation. These cars are still going almost 200 miles per hour, and these hits are serious. These are the hits that can end your career very easily. … There is a boundary here, and that’s what NASCAR’s trying to say. We want you to race hard, we don’t want to step in every time somebody makes a little bit of contact or rubs, but hooking someone in the right rear corner, out of bounds.”
Evidently, Keselowski doesn’t believe Elliott should’ve hooked Hamlin, and a suspension was justified, a belief shared by Waltrip
“I agree,” stated the two-time Daytona 500 winner. “You saw Denny’s head there. I talked to Denny a little while ago, and he said his neck was so sore he could hardly move it. When I watched the wreck live on TV, I saw Brad make a little bit of contact, so I gave the benefit of the doubt, maybe Brad got there and hit Chase when he bounced off the wall, but when you slow it down and look at it, it was just an overreaction. I mean, he totally turned left and wrecked Denny on purpose. So I applaud NASCAR for making that decision. You study the SMT data, and SMT data does not lie. Now I’m not saying drivers do lie, but sometimes drivers remember the facts a little bit differently than maybe they were exactly when it went down.
“So Denny was really aggressive about his opinion over what happened in that crash, and NASCAR sided with Denny. Looked at the data. … Came to the decision that it was intentional. And you know, hooking somebody in the right rear, you can’t hook somebody in the left rear either. Any hooking is a bad deal in NASCAR. That causes direct impacts with something, and I’m glad NASCAR stepped in.”
As for how it compares to other racing incidents, Waltrip believes a battle for the win versus straight hooking somebody is incomparable.
“You know, you talk about what happened at Darlington between [Joey] Logano and [William] Byron, when Joey hit him in the back to win that race,” recollected Waltrip. “Well that’s bumping. That’s rubbing. That’s racing. Hooking is not.”
Chase Elliott will serve his one-race suspension this weekend, and Brad Keselowski and Michael Waltrip certainly agree with the decision. Hopefully the Hendrick Motorsports star will be an example to the rest of the field, that you can’t simply hook someone if you’re mad at them.