Ricky Stenhouse Jr. explains decision to park in Kyle Busch's pit box after All-Star Race wreck
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. decided to park his wrecked car in Kyle Busch’s pit box during the NASCAR All-Star race at North Wilkesboro Speedway on Sunday. On the Stacking Pennies podcast, Stenhouse explained why he made the move after being eliminated from the race.
“Because he does that all the time,” Stenhouse said about Busch. “He’s done that multiple times.”
Stacking Pennies host and fellow NASCAR driver Corey LaJoie then asked Stenhouse when he decided to park his car in Busch’s pit box. “I wasn’t sure, it was spur of the moment,” Stenhouse said. After Stenhouse parked the car, he went over to Busch’s team and said that he’d see him after the race.
Stenhouse then was asked how mad he was at the moment on a scale from one to 10. He said “11” while adding, “I’m pretty calm, I don’t really get super angry.”
After the race, Stenhouse confronted Busch. The two talked for a few seconds before Stenhouse punched Busch in the face. After the fight, Stenhouse continued to go after Busch for his actions on the track.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. wants to face Kyle Busch in boxing match
“Yeah, just definitely built-up frustration with how he runs his mouth all the time about myself,” Stenhouse said. “But I know he’s frustrated because he doesn’t run near as good as he used to, and I understand that. We’re a single-car team over here. We’re working really hard to go out and get better each and every weekend, and we had a really good game plan coming in.
“Our car was really strong Friday in practice. I was looking forward to running to the front. I think we had passed a couple cars there and I was excited for the rest of the night, and he ruined it. Being stuck in here definitely doesn’t help the frustration. If there was a tunnel, I’d have probably been home watching the end of that, but here we are.”
Stenhouse then said he would love to take on Busch in a boxing match. “I don’t have anything else for him,” he said. “If we want to do a charity match, I would do that, raise some money for maybe the NASCAR Foundation or something. That would be fun. Really other than that, I don’t have a whole lot for him.
Stenhouse, Busch and the rest of the drivers in the NASCAR Cup Series will be in Charlotte on Sunday for one of the biggest races of the year, the Coca-Cola 600.