Multiple veterans in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Sries have been critical of the younger, less experienced drivers in the series, claiming this new class of NASCAR drivers race too hard. Kevin Harvick, who is a 19-year veteran of NASCAR's top series, even went so far as to say that, if he'd raced the veterans of the sport years ago as hard as the young guys are racing him now, he'd be punched in the face.
Darrell Wallace Jr. is a part of that new class of drivers, as he's in his second full year of Cup Series competition as driver of the #43 Richard Petty Motorsports Chevrolet. He has, specifically, been criticized for hard racing. During the Bojangles' Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway earlier this month, he was the target of an obscene gesture from Ryan Newman after an on-track incident.
“Walking through the garage last weekend in Indy [a week after the incident], he said something like, ‘Ah, I was kind of frustrated but no harm, no foul,’ and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, it’s just you old guys just hate being raced at any time on the race track,’” Wallace said of Newman on Sept. 13 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
During the same media availability, Wallace recounted an exchange between himself and Cup Series rookie Ryan Preece after the first race at Las Vegas in March. Wallace said he texted an apology to Preece for racing him too hard during that first Las Vegas race. According to Wallace, Preece didn't understand why Wallace owed him an apology.
“He was like, ‘Dude, why are you apologizing for racing hard?’ And I was like, you know what? You’re absolutely right. We were racing hard; we got out. We didn’t shake each other’s hand, but we weren’t pissed off at each other; it was just one of those days. It’s what we do,” Wallace said of his interaction with Preece. “We get paid to race, not fall in line and not race the other guys as hard. I don’t know if you were racing 20 years ago in this series, and it wasn’t like this. Well, it’s a new day. (Expletive) changes every day. Get accustomed to it.”
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