KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Saturday’s (Sept. 28) Kansas Lottery 300 at Kansas Speedway had it all: an exciting finish, short runs, long runs, exciting restarts and frustrated drivers.
When it was all said and done after 200 laps and 300 miles, there were three sets of playoff drivers that were angry or at odds with each other.
Cole Custer and Chandler Smith stole all the headlines, as Smith put Custer in the wall while trying to defend the lead in the final stage. Custer eventually passed Smith with 10 to go after a long and grueling battle, only for Smith’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Aric Almirola to zip by the No. 00 car with four to go and take the checkered flag.
Further in the pack, it was Sammy Smith frustrated with AJ Allmendinger and Riley Herbst frustrated with Austin Hill. Both sets of drivers exchanged words on pit road after the race, with some conversations more cordial than others.
Smith versus Allmendinger had been brewing since the start of the day, as Allmendinger got into the back of Smith and sent him into the turn 4 wall on lap 2. The No. 8 car was never the same after the damage, and Smith limped the car home to a 22nd-place finish off the lead lap.
“There’s not much to it really, [Allmendinger] kind of just drove through me on lap 2 or whatever,” Smith said. “I don’t get it. It’s frustrating, it’s just lap 2 and he packs me full of air through the whole corner and then he expects me to not be loose.
“He’s like, ‘oh, you were loose’. Oh, no crap I’m going to be loose when you packed air on me and then decide to hit me off the corner into the wall. It’s frustrating, but he’s got some long days ahead of him himself.”
Allmendinger didn’t have a great day himself, struggling to a 17th-place finish. He frustrated with his own performance throughout the day and also shared his side of the incident.
“It’s racing early in the race,” Allmendinger said. “[Smith] was free, I was getting run into. I would never want to do that on purpose. There’s nothing I’m going to say to make it better, he’s got the right to be mad. I tried to do everything I could to stay off of him, he was so loose right in front of me, but I get it.”
The incident between Herbst and Hill occurred on the final lap of stage two. In an attempt to block Sheldon Creed as they raced toward the green-and-white checkered flag,…
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