Denny Hamlin Reveals Why Ricky Stenhouse Jr. Had to Punch Kyle Busch After All-Star Race

After Sunday’s All-Star race in North Wilkesboro, Rickey Stenhouse Jr. camped outside the #8 Richard Childress Racing hauler waiting for Kyle Busch and punched him in the face once he arrived. With the brawl that followed being the talk of the NASCAR town since. Meanwhile, Denny Hamlin said that Stenhouse Jr. had to throw the first punch because he’d openly threatened to do so in the hours past.

The birthing reason behind the chaos was Busch wrecking Stenhouse Jr. in the race’s second lap in retaliation to a first lap maneuver that was made on him. The JTG Daugherty Racing driver drove his damaged car to the pit road and warned Busch’s crew and the media that he will be “talking” with him when the race ends. Hamlin believes that this promise is why he threw hands despite Busch seemingly getting ready to make peace.

The Joe Gibbs Racing hotshot said on Actions Detrimental, “Before his face-to-face with Kyle, he put himself in a box. He put himself in a box on TV by saying he was going to do something. Ricky is one of those standup humans that when he tells you he’s going to do something he’s probably going to do it.” He continued to notice how Busch was just beginning to settle the issue when Stenhouse Jr. deprived him of the chance just to keep his word.

“He was just about to make the turn into the relationship where he was like, ‘Okay, you’re right. I apologize. I’ll look at it if that’s what happened, sorry.’ He just never got the chance to say it because Ricky saw the opportunity to throw this punch starting to dwindle and he says, ‘Well, I said it. I guess I gotta do it.” The only issue is that the cost of Stenhouse Jr. being a man of his word in the instance could lead him to being suspended by NASCAR.

Ricky Stenhouse Jr. let off long-building frustration by punching Busch

Talking to the press after the altercation, Stenhouse Jr. admitted that the friction between the two stems far beyond what happened on Sunday. “I wrecked him one time at Daytona, and he’s been kind of bad-mouthing me ever since then,” he said. “Yeah, just definitely built-up frustration with how he runs his mouth all the time about myself.” 

To make things worse after the wreck, he’d been forced to sit in the field since the track did not have an exit tunnel. Regardless of any justification, NASCAR could end up suspending him, his father, and multiple members of both the crews who were involved in the fight.