Shane Hmiel had already rescued his race once before he reached Dale Jarrett at Bristol. An early flat tire left him three laps down, but he worked his way back into contention without the benefit of a lucky dog. Late in the race, he was fighting for 10th when he got alongside Jarrett’s No. 90 Ford. The contact that followed ended Jarrett’s night and set up a confrontation that would outlive the result.

Hmiel revisited the 2005 Bristol race in conversation with Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the confrontation with a driver he had known through family friends. The television clip captured the gesture that followed; his account explains the frustration behind it and what the $10,000 penalty meant to him.

“I wanted to be 10th, and he was 10th,” Hmiel said on the Dale Jr. Download podcast. “And I turned underneath him, and he was turning under Michel Jourdain at the same time. And uh, I was just there, and I stayed there and spun him out. He got really pissed off, and I knew him growing up as my mom and Kelly (Jarrett’s ex-wife), when they were married, were friends. So I always knew him. 

“And he was like ‘You’re a dumba**; I’ll get you out there. I’ll hurt your a** one day. And that’s when I flipped him off. And claim to fame it’s kind of cool that it’s on YouTube. But other than that, I don’t even race on the same track as you. We’re not even on the same people. Why are you threatening to hurt me? So I was a little bu–hurt by that. I was pi–ed off. But he was mad. I was like, ‘Wow,’ I just did not expect that.”

The contact came in the closing laps of the Bristol race, with Hmiel and Jarrett battling around 10th place. Jarrett had slowed to avoid trouble ahead when Hmiel’s Chevrolet hit him and spun him out of contention. During the stoppage that followed, Jarrett climbed out and walked to Hmiel’s car to challenge him. Hmiel’s middle-finger gesture was caught by the in-car camera and broadcast nationally, turning a late-race incident into the part of the story most fans remember.

Hmiel said their families knew each other, so Jarrett was not a stranger he had only encountered in the garage. But that familiarity did not soften the exchange: Jarrett was furious that his race had ended, while Hmiel felt the confrontation crossed a line when, in his recollection, it included a threat to hurt him.

NASCAR’s response was swift. Hmiel was fined $10,000 and docked 25 driver points for the gesture. Braun Racing owner Todd Braun also lost 25 owner points. The team initially considered appealing, but later withdrew the appeal and accepted the penalties. The sanction was for Hmiel’s conduct after the contact, not a fine imposed by Jarrett himself.

For Hmiel, the money was a serious hit. He was driving for Braun Racing and said he was not earning enough to shrug off a five-figure penalty.

“That’s a lot of money because I was driving for Braun,” Hmiel said. “You didn’t pay anybody, so I didn’t have any money.”

Hmiel apologized in the days after Bristol, particularly to viewers and children who had seen the gesture. He said he respected Jarrett and had not intended to hit him, describing the contact as a fast-moving closing-lap situation. The apology did not change the result or NASCAR’s penalty.

Did Jarrett ever get him back on track? There is no reliable contemporary report or documented race incident establishing that Jarrett deliberately retaliated against Hmiel in a later event. The two’s Bristol clash is well documented; a continuing on-track vendetta is not. That distinction matters because the confrontation can easily be retold as the start of a feud when the available record supports a heated, very public disagreement.

The footage still circulates because it caught a frustrated veteran demanding an explanation and a younger driver answering with a gesture that cost him $10,000. Hmiel’s recollection adds context, from the flat tire that put him three laps down to the fight for 10th that brought him alongside Jarrett. It shows how one move and the exchange that followed became a lasting NASCAR memory.