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On Tuesday, Brett Griffin made some waves along with spotter Joel Edmonds on the podcast, “Door, Bumper, Clear”, accusing NASCAR of intervening in the battle between Ross Chastain and Ryan Blaney. NASCAR spokesman responded on social media, and Griffin along with fellow spotter Freddie Kraft responded back. What happened, and who was right?
We have already covered the inciting incident in a previous article. For the full story, check that out below, but, here are the basics of the story.
Brett Griffin started off the controversy by making a comment on “Door, Bumper, Clear”. In that podcast, he accused NASCAR of “fussing” at Ross Chastain for racing Ryan Blaney, a Championship 4 contender.
When Blaney hit Ross Chastain, Ross Chastain’s spotter, was fussed at by a NASCAR official…The official went down there and said ‘What are you doing?’, and [Chastain’s spotter] was like, ‘What am I doing, I’m trying to win a race.’ Right, but [the official] didn’t want Ross Chastain racing to be, I don’t know racing I guess Blaney that hard…they didn’t want another shishow on their hands.
Brett Griffin
Later in the show, Joel Edmonds offered another perspective on the incident, where he claimed a NASCAR official talked to Chastain’s spotter, Brandon McReynolds. Edmonds also claimed that he did not see the official say anything to Blaney’s spotter. However, a couple of NASCAR spokesmen responded.
Mike Forde of NASCAR later responded by saying that an official talked to the spotters because they saw the spotters getting heated. He also claimed that NASCAR never told Chastain to move over.
Another NASCAR spokesman, Phil Surgen, made comments on Sirius XM NASCAR Radio. He claimed that no official intervened in the battle between Chastain and Blaney. It’s worth noting that intervening between spotters getting heated and a driver battle is not the same thing, so, it is definitely that both Surgen and Forde are telling the truth.
Now on to the juicy part. Freddie Kraft was particularly upset with the responses of NASCAR. This is what Kraft had to say. First, he responded when he saw that Forde and Surgen appeared to make somewhat contradicting statements.
Again, it is worth noting that Surgen saying that NASCAR did not intervene in how the two raced and Forde saying that the spotters were told to calm down by an official can both be true. It’s possible that NASCAR saw what was happening with the spotters, and they wanted to diffuse that situation without making any comment about what was happening on track. However, it does paint a very cloudy picture about what happened, and claiming there was no intervention while another guy claims an official talked to driver’s spotters can look very odd.
Kraft also fired back at Forde’s comments. Kraft said that essentially all that those on DBC said was that an official talked to the spotter of the 1 car. Therefore, DBC was telling the truth, and Forde’s claim that they were lying is not correct.
Now, if you look at Griffin’s original comment, he does say, “but [the official] didn’t want Ross Chastain racing to be, I don’t know racing I guess Blaney that hard”, so, a spotter did theorize that an official did not want Chastain racing Blaney hard. On top of that Edmonds also claimed that they only talked to Chastain’s spotter, and not Blaney’s. That’s a much different story than what Forde claimed, which was that both spotters were talked to.
In response to Kraft making these comments on Twitter, Griffin decided to put this matter to bed. He stood by what he said, and he said that there needed to be no more conversation.
At the end of the day, until we hear exactly what was said, and if we see any video of the confrontation, we do not know exactly what happened. There are multiple sides to the story, and it seems that both sides are digging in on their perspectives. Which side do you fall on?
