For a sport that began with moonshine runners and other unsavory characters racing around in hopped-up cars on remote dirt tracks, the occasional fat lip or black eye was just part of the cost of doing business in NASCAR.
Who can forget the legendary brawl between the Allison brothers and Cale Yarborough after the 1979 Daytona 500?
More recently, Jimmy Spencer broke Kurt Busch's nose at Michigan in 2002, Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards scuffled in the garage at Charlotte in 2008 and then 65-year-old Richard Childress punched Kyle Busch at Kansas in 2011. Last year, there was a big throwdown on pit road at Phoenix between the crews of Clint Bowyer and Jeff Gordon.
Helmet tosses -think Tony Stewart vs. Matt Kenseth at Bristol- are practically commonplace.
So when Nelson Piquet Jr. and Brian Scott tangled after the NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Richmond Friday night, it appeared at first to be no big deal.
But then, with both men still wearing their helmets, Piquet went for the groin kick. And he didnât even execute it especially well. It was not a Yarborough vs. Allison tough guy moment. It was not "boys, have at it."
In fact, it was more like this scene from "Talladega Nights":
Perhaps, like the fictitious Jean Girard, Piquet just likes really thin pancakes.
