With 15 laps to go following the final restart at Phoenix Raceway, there was a chaotic moment at the backend of the top ten.
Zane Smith was running eighth in Sunday's NASCAR Cup race as he raced off into Turn 3 with Josh Berry on his back bumper. Suddenly, the black No. 77 of Carson Hocevar slid up the track, colliding with the side of Berry's No. 21 and the back of Smith's No. 38.
All three cars lost several positions, but the culprit was actually a fourth player -- the No. 1 of Ross Chastain. After Hocevar cleared up in front of Chastain, he bumped the Spire driver into Turn 3, sending him skating up the track.
But all Smith knew at the time was that his long-time rival Hocevar had just hit him and robbed him of a potential top ten. He went on to finish 15th with Hocevar 12th, and quickly ran down Hocevar after the race.
Gassing up to 140mph, he slammed into the back of Hocevar on the cool-down lap, with the Front Row Motorsports driver going about 30mph faster than Hocevar at the point of impact. That was the end of it, but the FRM and Spire teams were concerned of further escalation.
On the No. 77 radio, Hocevar's crew chief instructed the spotter to "just make sure they know the damn 1 car [Chastain] shipped us, tried to crash us all."
Originally, FRM had told Smith that Hocevar had missed the corner, only getting the full picture later atop the spotter's stand. They radioed Smith as he parked on pit road, saying: "Just so you know, the 1 [Chastain] was apparently the one who shipped the 77 [Hocevar] into us."
Smith didn't seem to care. "I don't give an f***," he replied.
It's not a big surprise that he would respond that way, as Smith and Hocevar have been bitter rivals for a while now. On a podcast appearance in July, he tore into Hocevar as a 'coward' and made pointed comments against growing his fan base.
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