By Michele Rahal from Race Day on Fox Sports Radio. Heard Sunday mornings from 6-9am (eastern) on 220 FOX Sports Radio Affiliates and XM Radio Channel 142.

When you think of the old days of stock car racing, you’re drawn back to a time when if it didn’t work out on the track, the drivers worked it out with their fists. Well, those days are gone. All the rage this weekend was the shoving match between Kevin Harvick and Carl Edwards. A shoving match, not a fight, not a bench-clearing brawl. No one got put in a penalty box or lost their teeth.  The real story this weekend wasn’t even NASCAR but its stepbrother ARCA.

Going into Sunday’s season finale race at Toledo Speedway the ARCA series had all the underpinnings of an incredible battle for the championship with Scott Speed and Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. in a close battle. Not to be outdone, Penske’s new young find, Justin Algaier, and the wily veteran Frank Kimmel had a mathematical chance of taking the crown.

When the flag fell, no one could have scripted the outcome. Speed, who started third and Stenhouse, starting fourth went at it tooth and claw from the get go. Stenhouse repeatedly bashed, pushed and did everything but throw a hand grenade at Speed to pass him. Finally, on lap 27, after Dexter Bean spun relinquishing third position, Stenhouse got into the back of Speed’s Toyota and, very much like the Geico kid, ‘Put him (Speed) in the wall’.

However, unlike the commercial and straight out of the movie Days of Thunder, it didn’t end there. Speed pitted, took four tires and immediately set out on a turkey shoot, the said victim being Stenhouse. He found him after Stenhouse passed Speed, who was lying in wait. What ensued was classic stock car racing retaliation 101. Speed wasted no time in driving straight into the left fender of Stenhouse’s Ford, kept his foot on the accelerator and all but destroyed Stenhouse’s car and like a chapter straight from Sun Tsu’s ‘Art of War’ totally crushed and ended all hope of Stenhouse taking the championship from Speed.

According to Speed, “He (Stenhouse) was on my bumper and he pushed me flat out until I hit the wall,” said Speed. “And then the car was completely un-drivable; it wasn’t even close. It was so bad from hitting the wall; I couldn’t do anything with it. Stenhouse started it and he isn’t going to win this championship with that attitude. That was ridiculous; that was the most blatant thing I ever saw in my life. Honestly, it’s just ARCA; that’s just how it is.” No doubt ARCA was thrilled with that statement, ultimately parking Speed.

Stenhouse, who knew Speed couldn't care less about winning an ARCA championship, did whatever he had to do to win but did not count on the well-calculated payback.

Like every great story there are always two sides, so Stenhouse and the Roush PR machine put a spin on the incident that a Moroccan whirling dervish couldn’t top.

According to Stenhouse, “I got under the No. 2 a couple times there and let him go because he almost wrecked,” said Stenhouse, Jr. following the race.  “Then I went over the rumble strips in turns one and two and that caused them to fade so I was trying to pump them up in turn three and got into the back of the No. 2 car a little bit.  After that he came back on track and got into the left rear of the Aflac Ford Fusion sending me into the wall and ending our chance for a win and a championship.  He’s a great driver but I just don’t think he drives with his head all the time. It’s a bad situation for both teams.  I can’t thank my Aflac team enough and all the guys on the Zaxby’s team that helped get us back out there.  That was pretty cool.”

Rumble strips? Pumping the brakes? Not hardly. The only thing Stenhouse was pressing was the accelerator, probably through the floorboard shoving Speed into the wall. ARCA’s viewer-ship numbers weren’t readily available, but if anyone other than Stevie Wonder was sitting in front of their television screens, what they had to have seen was a methodical, purposeful and open act of crashing someone to win the championship. Anyone can win by crashing their opponent. That is not the reason we race. Stenhouse should have been parked. But he wasn’t so Speed took the matter into his own hands.

Scott Speed may have done more than openly retaliate against Stenhouse, after all, he’s a Sprint Cup driver as of today with the Red Bull team. What he unwittingly may have done was to send a message to everyone in the sport that he’ll race clean, if that’s what you want, but he’s all too happy to take that trip into the wall with you if you intend to race dirty.

Perhaps Sunday night Speed had flowers, a card and a bottle of Dom Perignon waiting in his hotel room courtesy of Justin Algaier but if he didn’t, he should have.

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Rob D'Amico and Michele Rahal from Race Day on Fox Sports Radio DO NOT see eye to eye on the Juan Pablo Montoya vs Kyle Busch story and as we all know there are two sides to every story.

Michele's Take:

Yesterday at the Loudon, New Hampshire Lenox Industrial Tools 301 Sprint Cup race, Kyle Busch stared into the cameras once again after an on-track altercation on the last caution lap with Juan Pablo Montoya. This time, however, it was a very different Kyle. This Kyle took on the role of the innocent victim, the oppressed and downtrodden. The scene had an eerie Sybil-like look to it.

Juan Montoya had the nerve to spin him out on purpose.

So there Busch stood with that Alfred E. Newman look on his face as if the school principle were standing in front of him asking what role he had played in the schoolyard fight. Busch was spinning his side of the story like a whirling dervish about his role in the incident. “Let NASCAR take care of it” he proclaimed, he added, “I don’t know what his beef is”.

Well the beef appears to be one more example of how Kyle Busch races other competitors. Not the hard driving or brilliant skills that he uses, but rather the bullying tactics of rubbing and repeatedly bumping into people he feels should get out of his anointed way.

On Sunday he ran into the wrong person. Juan Pablo Montoya has bumped wheels with world champions at 200 mph, in an open wheel car and personalities like Kyle Busch don’t scare him. Kyle Busch finally met someone who simply said, “He (Busch) crossed the line”.

Depending on who you believe, Busch had repeatedly bumped and rubbed on Montoya leading up to the caution. When the caution came out, due to Clint Bowyer and Sam Hornish. Jr. colliding, Busch hit him again. Montoya gave him a gesture inferring Kyle’s IQ and Busch rubbed against him again. Then in front of God, America and all the television cameras, Montoya turned into the right rear quarter panel of Busch and took him out.

My bet is that everyone who ever hated Montoya has realized that he had finally slapped the school bully right in the mouth and they’re glad he did. I would be willing to bet that you couldn’t find anyone other than the Gibbs camp who had any sympathy for Busch. He had it coming and someone openly and unapologetically gave it to him.

What did NASCAR do about it? In terms of disciplinary actions of the past, they did virtually nothing. Montoya received a two-lap penalty. That’s it. Even NASCAR itself apparently thought that Busch had it coming, it was on a caution lap, no one in the way and no harm no foul. Not to mention it’s great press.

So what’s next? Will Busch retaliate? If he does he runs the risk of letting his competitors catch up to him in the chase. Trust me, Joe Gibbs has reminded him of that and the race at Daytona this weekend is no place to try and put yourself in the spotlight other than winning. Busch will do nothing at Daytona. The chances are actually good that he’ll leave Montoya alone from this point forward.

Chances are even better that Montoya has finally let everyone in the garage know that he won’t take any bullying from anyone. It’s about time.


Rob's Take:

In the beginning it was all about hard side-by-side racing at it finest. Two drivers with giant egos battling back and forth for position and there’s nothing wrong with that right?

Well until Juan Pablo Montoya decided to make a bone headed move and take Kyle and himself out of the race intentionally. Remember, this is all under a caution brought on when a collision between Sam Hornish, Jr. and Clint Bowyer brought out the yellow, but we'll get to that in another blog. Montoya's lucky that he didn't take another unexpected driver out of the race too.

Some people like Rahal believe that Kyle had it coming for his rough racing out on the track.

Isn't that what we are here to see? Two drivers, both with great talent, fighting for position out on the racetrack? Isn't that racing?

Yes, Kyle swerved his car towards Montoya and yes there was contact but at no point did Kyle take Montoya out of the race intentionally and under a yellow! Kyle just gave him a friendly reminder that if that is how you want to race then game on my friend.

We saw guys all day battle side-by-side, for example did you see pretty boy, ‘I don't do anything wrong’ Kasey Kahne take out Aric Almirola? But here is where it gets better. Almirola gets revenge the smart way. Later in the race he gave Kasey a taste of his own medicine and returned the favor spinning him with a little love tap. Now that's just ‘one of them racin' deals’!

Or did you happen to catch Hendrick teammates Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon doing the exact same thing that Kyle and Juan were doing. Racing side-by-side beating, ####ing and swerving back and forth at each other.

So what's the difference? Jimmie Johnson, nor Jeff Gordon took the other one out under caution. The two drivers chalked it up as ‘one of them racin' deals’.

Do I need to remind everyone why we freeze the field when a caution comes out? It was at this track a few years ago when Dale Jarrett crashed in the middle of the track and everyone was racing around him to get back to the yellow flag. This put Dale Jarrett every other driver, including safety workers in danger.

There is a time and place for everything and retaliation under a caution is not the place.

What I wanted to see was Juan Pablo Montoya get out of his car and go grab Kyle out of his ride. Now that’s punching the bully right in the mouth, at the right time and place!

Or how about putting your money where your mouth is and kicking Kyle’s rear-end on the racetrack by getting a win. Oh wait, that’s to hard!