WATCH: NASCAR’s Nick Sanchez Ends Up Bloodied in Post-Crash Row with Matt Crafton

Meg Oliphant_Getty Images
Meg Oliphant/Getty Images
Warner Todd Huston

Tensions boiled over off the track during Saturday’s NASCAR Truck Series at Talladega Superspeedway after two drivers ended up entangled in a wreck.

Nick Sanchez was working to push his way ahead on the front stretch with three laps to go when he made contact with Matt Crafton’s vehicle, sending both spinning into a smashup. The wreck forced Crafton out of the race.

But even as Crafton was out, the wreck only put Sanchez in seventh place. And once the race was done, it still left him in fourth place in the standings.

The whole thing apparently put the pair a bit on edge in the garage.

Video of the short brawl shows Sanchez being pushed back from the imbroglio while. yelling, “I’m gonna f—ing kill you in Homestead. You f—ed with the wrong guy, mother—er.”

Sanchez is clearly bloodied from the fistfight.

After being released from the medics, Sanchez told the media that he got a “tap on the shoulder” and then was sucker punched.

“Cheap shot, but it is what it is. I’m all for fighting, but no cheap shots. I got a cheap shot. Never had a chance to get him back. It is what it is. It’s a part of racing,” Sanchez claimed.

For his part, Crafton fully disputed that he perpetrated any sort of “sucker punch” attack.

Crafton claims that it was Sanchez who started the ball rolling by threatening Crafton.

“First, let’s address the “sucker punch.” Before the cameras started rolling, I approached Nick and said, “hey” when he turned around I said “what the —?!” to which he looked right at me and threatened me,” he wrote in a Sunday post on X.

“That is when it all went to hell. I had his attention, words were exchanged, all before anything physical took place, so I did not “sucker punch” the guy. There may not be video, but there were plenty of eyewitnesses,” he said.

Crafton added that Sanchez “sucker punched” him at “200 mph” by causing the wreck on the track and added that Sanchez has “a lack of respect on the track.”

The driver apologized to his team for getting physical, but insisted that he reacted to a threat.

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