NASCAR fans may have their eyes peeled for what happens between Carson Hocevar and Brad Keselowski in the Cup Series race, but the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series has already delivered on that. After contact between Hendrick Motorsport’s Corey Day and Joe Gibbs Racing’s William Sawalich in Darlington, it was more of the same at Gateway.
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William Sawalich was left frustrated as he felt Corey Day spun him out in Darlington and threatened to ruin Day’s Chase when the HMS driver went up to clear the air last week. It didn’t take long for Sawalich to deliver on his threats. And finding himself on the receiving end, Day tried his best not to go off script in calling out Sawalich.
“I don’t. No,” is what Day, according to Toby Christie, said when asked if he had anything to say to Sawalich. “I think he made himself look stupid enough for me to need to say anything.”
On lap 134 during Saturday’s race at World Wide Technology Raceway, going into turn one, Sawalich and Day were battling for fifth, with Day attempting to get higher up the track from the inside and Sawalich coming down from the outside line. The No. 17 HMS Chevrolet and 18 JGR Toyota locked doors, with Sawalich unwilling to pull out while Day had no room to his left with JR Motorsports’ Justin Allgaier on his left rear.
When the cars finally broke free, Day was slightly ahead, and it looked like Sawalich backed off before intentionally hip-checking Day and ramming into his right to end the 17 HMS driver’s race. Sawalich drove away with smoking tires and ended his own race in 16th while Day finished with a DNF next to his name.
Day was obviously pretty distraught at the result, having dropped three spots to 8th in the standings, 69 points behind championship leader Sheldon Creed. Day was even more frustrated because he felt like he had a car that would have finished in the top five, handing him a major points haul in his fight for the championship.
“I got down in there beside him and, you know, I went to go pull to the bottom, but the 7(Allgaier) had me pushed up into him,” said Day when asked to break down the incident. “I couldn’t really do anything; I had nowhere to go. I don’t really want to talk about it much. He took care of it by what he did.”
Obviously distraught, his interaction with members of the media was a short one where each question about Sawalich got an even shorter response. The HMS driver said he didn’t want to speculate when asked if NASCAR should do something about it.
Although he wasn’t willing to answer, the reporters pressed on and asked where things go next, and his reply was curt: “I think we go to Bristol next week.”Asked to specify further on what happens next with Sawalich:
“I mean, I’m not gonna; there’s nothing I can say to him that’s gonna make him see my side of it,” Day said. “He’s just — it’s not worth my time.”
While Sawalich has clearly made it his mission to remove any hopes Day has of winning the title, other drivers on the track have felt the impact of the ongoing feud, and they don’t like it. Justin Allgaier, who was trailing the incident at Gateway, had some damage and lost out on a lead he had built in points. The JMR driver is now 2nd with 3 points, keeping Sheldon Creed ahead of him.
“It’s one thing for those two to have a problem on the racetrack,” said Allgaier. “But when it starts affecting other people that are in the Chase. I think that’s where it’s really difficult. And you guys are all gonna be covering a similar situation tomorrow(Hocevar-Keselowski). Does it affect it? Does it not? And those are things that I think that this sport, while we love the gloves-off side of our sport and we love that everybody has aggression, if it’s just two of you and you want to wreck each other, go for it. But there’s a lot more people on the racetrack.”
Allgaier wasn’t happy, but a three-point gap is much easier to cover up than a 69-point gap, and Corey Day can see his championship dreams crumbling before his eyes. With just seven races remaining, the HMS driver knows what the reality is.
“It’s tough. It’s really tough,” Day said before adding what he needs to do. “It’s gonna take us winning maybe three times now to have a shot at this in the next seven races or however many is left. So just really unfortunate that it didn’t. I feel like we had a top-five car and another really good points day going.”
Day will see this as a lost opportunity while we all wait to see if there are any sort of repercussions for Sawalich for threatening Day and following through in the dramatic manner that he did.