After Noah Gragson’s remark about “dip—–” being in the way every week, fellow NASCAR Xfinity Series driver David Starr had a talk with him.
Noah Gragson looked poised to win the third race on the 2021 NASCAR Xfinity Series schedule at Homestead-Miami Speedway after losing two potential victories at the track in the closing laps in the middle of last June.
But for the third race in a row around the four-turn, 1.5-mile (2.414-kilometer) oval in Homestead, Florida, victory eluded him, and this time it happened in a more dramatic fashion than the previous two did.
With just over two laps remaining, the driver of the #9 Chevrolet had a massive lead over Our Motorsports’ Tyler Reddick in second place.
While he was still driving the high line and pulling away, he was only doing it at 50% throttle to try to avoid putting himself in any risky situations.
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Unfortunately for him, it didn’t work out. Just ahead of him coming into turn three, the #13 MBM Motorsports Toyota of David Starr experienced a tire issue and slid up the track into the wall.
With no time to react or change his line, Gragson, still riding the high line, slammed into the back of Starr’s car, ending the #9 team’s chance at securing the win in heartbreaking fashion. As a result, Gragson is still in search of his first win since early last June at Bristol Motor Speedway.
Take a look at the incident in the video below.
MBM Motorsports are one of the more underfunded teams in the series, yet the veteran Starr, who had started the race all the way back in 40th (last) place, was running up in 12th and had not yet been lapped by the race leader when the incident happened.
The incident quite literally could have happened to anybody, but it understandably left Gragson fuming, considering he wasn’t actually racing Starr for position. That led to him making the following NSFW mark on live television in his post-race interview.
"“What are you gonna do – you’ve got dipshits in the way, every single week.”"
Take a look below.
Watching fish swim around definitely makes things better ...
— FOX: NASCAR (@NASCARONFOX) February 28, 2021
A frustrated Noah Gragson talks with @JamieLittleTV after his crash with David Starr in Homestead. pic.twitter.com/Qa740wlGna
While it does appear as though Gragson was referring to more situations than the one involving Starr, MBM Motorsports team owner Carl Long took exception to that remark, referring to Gragson as an “over entitled mouthpiece” who didn’t have enough talent to avoid Starr’s #13 Toyota.
Starr, however, had a different response, and is not holding a grudge against the 22-year-old Las Vegas, Nevada native. Here is what Starr, who has been competing in NASCAR since before Gragson was born, had to say about the matter on his podcast Let’s Go Racing with David Starr.
"“I said, ‘Man, I sure in the heck didn’t want you to wreck.’ I didn’t want to wreck. It’s not often us small teams like Carl Long’s team … Our budgets are very small, and when you have chance to run in the top 15, it’s almost like a win for us. To finish 12th or have an opportunity if somebody ran out of gas to finish in the top 10, that would’ve been big for us teams that are not your big powerhouse teams. It’s just racing and it’s just a shame that it turned out that way, but it does. It happens.”"
Take a listen below.
Starr ended up finishing the race in 21st place, the better of his two finishes so far this season. He is set to drive the #13 Toyota throughout the rest of the season, so it will be interesting to see the kind of results he and the team can string together knowing how well they ran at the intermediate track of Homestead-Miami Speedway before the late tire issue.