Battle At The Beach Turns Ugly

Daytona's inaugural Battle at the Beach turned into a free-for-all as the leader at the white flag in all three races was blatantly taken out by the driver behind him and, in two of those, the offending driver ended up celebrating in victory lane.

It started out on Monday night when rising star Kyle Larson tried to loosen up leader C.E. Falk in the final turn of the Late Model race, but when that first bump didn't produce the results that he needed Larson nailed him again sending Falk for a spin just a few yards from the checkers. The small crowd on hand booed Larson as he exited his car in victory lane, something that he said he has not experienced often. "It's kind of cool", he said and in regard to why he spun out the leader coming to the checkered flag Larson was quoted as saying "This was a pretty big race, Iwanted to win it." But by deliberately spinning a guy out?

The lack of action by NASCAR officials in the case of Larson set the stage for more poor sportsmanship on Tuesday night as both the Whelen Modified Series and the K&N Pro Series events saw the leaders taken out on the final lap. In the Modifieds it was veteran Mike Stefanik who was shoe-horned by Steve Park and while Park celebrated in victory lane, Stefanik stewed at his trailer. And then the folks at SPEED had the poor judgement of sticking a live microphone in his face. Stefanik tried to not say anything, but the director did not cut away in time as Stefanik then made it very clear how he felt using language that the FCC only allows on South Park after 9 p.m. And to make matters worse Mike Joy then stated that his comments were uncalled for. Really? What did you expect him to say? The guy just got robbed of $20,000, I'm surprised he was as kind as he was!

The K&N race would close out the night and it was Michael Self who was in the worst position possible when the white flag waved. That's right, you DON'T want to be in the lead on this 4/10th-mile paper clip when the white flag waves as there is nothing like rules or sportsmanship that is going to give you a fighting chance to take that checkered flag. This time it was 15-year-old Gray Gaulding who blasted the leader in the rear-end going into turn one spinning him completely around, but sweet justice did at least come through in this one as Gaulding then drove too hard into turn three, washed up the track in turn four and allowed Cameron Haley to pass him coming to the checkered flag for the win. Congratulations Cameron, you were the one winner of the BotB who did not deserve to be booed in victory lane. When they interviewed Gaulding he thought that he had help from behind when he drilled Self and then he thought that he ran over something slick in turn three. Check the tape kid, you will see that you were wrong on both accounts.

Can you imagine having three feature races end like this at your local dirt track on one weekend? The fights would still be going on......