WATCH: NASCAR Driver Clint Bowyer Rains Punches Down on Ryan Newman After Race

Clint Bowyer
AP Photo/Mike McCarn

NASCAR driver Clint Bowyer ran over to Ryan Newman’s car at the conclusion of Saturday’s race and began swinging at him, in a beef over car-to-car contact on the track.

Bowyer’s fisticuffs came after Newman knocked Bowyer’s car into the wall during the cool-down lap, Yahoo Sports reported.

Newman was still sitting in his car when Bowyer came over swinging.

When called before officials and asked about the incident, Newman reportedly said, “you ask him.”

But Newman later told a longer story to Fox Sports.

“(Bowyer) chopped me on the front straightaway earlier in the race,” Newman said. “Then after the race, I just tapped him in the back, let him know I didn’t appreciate the way he raced me. Then he body-slammed me, then I hit him back on the back straightaway and he cut across my nose in Turn 3. It doesn’t take much of a man try to fight someone with a helmet on. I think he should be embarrassed by himself.”

Bowyer also had a bit more to say about the imbroglio in a post race interview.

“It was a damn sure surprise fight,” Bowyer told Fox. “I don’t know what his beef was. I thought he was a lap down. Our day was over, we lost track position there, got sideways and crossed up and basically just biding time there, seeing if something is going to happen there at the end. … I thought he was a lap down.

“I checked up and he run into my left rear and that’s the last I saw of him,” Bowyer added. “Then after the race, he comes and runs into my back and turns me all around. I pull up next to him and he dumps me in four. Where I come from, you get poked in the nose for that. That’s what he got.”

Neither racer gained high marks for the day’s run. Bowyer finished 12th while Newman placed 13th.

The two had to answer to NASCAR senior vice president of competition, Scott Miller.

“Obviously they had a little difference of opinion out there on the race track and they had a little difference of opinion here in the trailer but we think we understand what happened out there,” Miller said later. “We think they’re in a pretty good place We’re going to keep an eye on it. We think we’re in a good place with them. We’ll have to certainly monitor that next week and moving forward with those two.

“If there starts to be any shenanigans, we will intervene,” Miller added before saying he did not expect there to be any penalties for the behavior.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.

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