“Maybe it got a little out of hand at times,” said Alex Bowman upon reflecting about the Clash.
Yeah, maybe.
There were 16 cautions across 150 green flag laps on Sunday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, up from five in this same race last year, and it wasn’t because of the full moon. That’s a trope and it didn’t affect the racing one bit.
But what did?
“When they build a racetrack in a football field, that’s what we’re here to do,” Bowman said. “We’re here to put on a show and be exciting. … We all knew when we (first) heard about this event, whenever it was the first time that we were going to come here, people were going to run over each other. It’s too easy.”
Maybe it was just easier this year now that teams have additional inventory in advance of the second regular season using the Gen-7 platform. Maybe it’s a greater conviction that these cars can handle this kind of attempted abuse.
That was how Kyle Larson felt anyway.
“Last year was the first race for this car and we didn’t know how tough they were at the time,” Larson said. “There was not as much slamming. I think people didn’t quite know how strong the noses and rear bumpers were.
“This year it was just like everybody just ran through the person in front of them. If you got a hole to get down, somewhere to get down, then the three or four cars behind would just shove them through the two in front of them. A lot of accordion, and just difficult on the restarts, especially where I was, middle of the pack.”
There were various points of the race where a caution would immediately be followed by another caution during an event that only counted green flag laps. Last year, the race took 55 minutes to complete. The sequel took one hour, 43 minutes and four seconds.
Austin Dillon said he felt like a prize fighter at one point early in the race.
“The first 30 laps my head was against the head rest probably every lap,” Dillon said. “It was just bang, bang, back and forth, every corner. I couldn’t believe how aggressive it was the first run. There was nothing but just hammer each other and hope to come out the other side.
“I got hit one time at the end…when we got back in line, it knocked the wheel out of my hands. I couldn’t believe it. Just kind of picked up the gas and caught it back.
“But you’re taking some pretty good blows out there and trying to stay calm. I think Martin got mad at me one…
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