Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer snags win while tempers flare between Hamlin, Keselowski
Richard Childress Racing's Clint Bowyer celebrates his win in Saturday's NASCAR Nationwide Series Dover 200 at Dover International Speedway. // David Griffin, NASCAR Scene
DOVER, Del. – Clint Bowyer jumped out to a comfortable lead on a late restart, enabling him to hold off the surprising Mike Bliss and win the Dover 200, his second Nationwide Series victory of the season.
But the real fireworks were behind him Saturday at Dover International Speedway as Brad Keselowski spun Denny Hamlin with 11 laps to go, and Hamlin responded by shoving Keselowski as the two exchanged words on pit road following the race.
Bowyer had led the latter half of the race after Kyle Busch thumped the field in the early going, but a late caution put Bliss alongside the Richard Childress Racing driver for a restart with seven laps to go.
But Bowyer pulled away quickly on the final green flag and cruised to the checkered flag, topping his win total from all of last year, when he won the series title but only one race.
“What an awesome race track – I love this place,” Bowyer said. “Just an awesome day.”
Hamlin and Keselowski weren’t nearly as enthusiastic. As Keselowski completed a television interview, Hamlin jumped in and confronted the soon-to-be Sprint Cup Series full-time driver. The two exchanged brief shoves and words before a variety of people intervened.
“I wanted to talk to him,” Hamlin said. “He obviously needs some sort of guidance on what he needs to do to make it. He’s got a ton of talent, I am not going to take that away from him – he’s a good driver. If he can harness it, he’ll win a lot more races.
“At the Cup level, he'll realize it. A lot of it is he doesn’t have a lot of Cup experience, and that's OK, he’s getting there. Once he starts to get out there on Sunday, and see how to race, he'll realize in his younger years he didn’t do it the right way.”
Keselowski refuted Hamlin’s assertion that he did anything wrong.
“I held my ground, just like I did at Talladega [to win the Cup race] and just like I’m going to do for the rest of my career,” Keselowski said. “I'm not going to be pushed around, whether it's Denny Hamlin or whoever it is.”
Keselowski said he didn’t know Hamlin very well, but added, “I race everyone the same on the race track and that's the same as they race me.”
Keselowski finished third in his JR Motorsports Chevrolet, while Hamlin’s wreck relegated his Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota to 27th.
Bowyer had passed Busch with 83 laps to go and never relinquished it. He was only threatened by Bliss, who was driving his first race for CJM Racing.
“Monday I didn’t really have a ride for here, so even finishing second is good for me,” Bliss said. “But then it [stinks], because you can see the leader.”
Busch faded to fourth after leading a race-high 109 laps but held on to the points lead by 211 over Roush Fenway Racing's Carl Edwards, who finished fifth.
