After contact earlier in the race between Ryan Reed and Ryan Sieg, tempers flared in the garage area during a rain delay at Pocono Raceway Saturday afternoon.
On Lap 38, Reed blew a tire and hit Jeremy Clements, ending both of their days. Just a few laps before that the No. 16 Ford got into Sieg, sending him into the Turn 1 wall.
Sieg, who is the driver and owner of his No. 39 machine was none to pleased with Reed. When getting back to the garage area working on the car, Sieg was accused of mouthing off to the No. 16 team, which led to pushing and shoving.
“I went into Turn 1 and I should have been a little smarter than I was, you can’t race around the kid,” Sieg told a group of reporters. “He has a lot of money and is in a Roush car, but he can’t drive it. He’s an idiot, everywhere he goes it seems like he’s in a wreck. Money can’t buy skill. He either can’t see or he can’t drive.
“He kept jabbing off with his with his mouth and I figured I would shut it up for him.”
With just four full-time employees, Sieg isn’t sure if the team will be able to repair this car before Michigan next weekend. The No. 39 car is currently on the Chase bubble sitting 12th in the championship standings.
“It’s not going to make it to Michigan,” Sieg said about his car. “That’s the Michigan car, so we’re going to have to brash to get one ready.
The irony is that since the teams are so close in points, the team haulers are right next to each other, resulting in the scuffle. These drivers have been said to have ongoing problems racing each other on the racetrack as lately as last week in Charlotte. .
“Emotions run high, obviously, and it’s racing,” Reed said of the incident. “I look forward to talking about it in a calm, cool-collective manner and working it out. Obviously we race every week and it’s not going to do us any good to go out there and get into a battle royal, but at the end of the day it’s going to take two parties to agree. I think we need to sit down and have a mature conversation and when that happens, that happens.”
The XFINITY Series heads to Michigan next week, a place where Roush Fenway Racing has been dominant in the past.
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