Larson emerges from Wallace incident to dominate Miami

It’s the business end of the NASCAR Cup Series season. Joey Logano has secured his place in the Nov. 6 championship final race in Phoenix, and seven other drivers are looking to book their tickets to join him.

And while the title fight is as wide open as it’s ever been, there’s still plenty else to talk about, from Kyle Larson‘s Homestead-Miami dominance to Bubba Wallace‘s suspension to who’s primed for a big weekend at Martinsville on Sunday. So, with so much at stake in stock-car racing, ESPN turned to Ryan McGee and Marty Smith for their takes on the final few weeks of the 2022 NASCAR Cup Series season.

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McGee: You and I have not talked about this yet, but Bubba Wallace was suspended for a race. It’s the first time a Cup Series driver was parked for an in-race incident since Matt Kenseth was in 2015. Marty, where do you net out on all of that? Because I feel like the repercussions are still rolling.

Smith: I think they absolutely are. And since we haven’t discussed Wallace’s actions, just completely unacceptable in every way. There are certain rules that do not get broken. And the No. 1 unwritten-driver-code rule is you don’t right rear somebody and hook them into the fence at 185 miles an hour.

McGee: In traffic. Out of a turn. All of it was so wrong.

Smith: Every bit of it was just unacceptable. And to quote Logano, who was very outspoken afterward, it could have killed Larson. Fortunately, he wasn’t even injured. And then, after Wallace hooked Larson into the fence, Wallace was extremely frustrated, got out of the car and started shoving Larson, who managed to maintain his composure the entire time and not participate in the fight. I don’t know how he did that, quite frankly.

I understand Wallace’s frustration, stemming from the fact that he felt like he got fenced, but he took that frustration out in a completely overboard and wrong way. If another competitor had run up to me after doing what Wallace did and started shoving me, I certainly wouldn’t have had the composure to walk…