Austin Dillon, Brad Keselowski, TJ Majors and Chris Buescher have all discussed what happened between them last week at Nashville Superspeedway and have mostly ended up in a place of mutual understanding.
The entire ordeal began on Lap 145 when Dillon was spun off a chain reaction of events. There was a bottleneck on pit entry and coming down the frontstretch, Keselowski shaded low and stalled Dillon, who spun off the nose of Buescher.
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Dillon blamed Keselowski in real time.
Then, 47 laps later, there was a stack-up on a restart and Dillon followed Keselowski down the apron. Dillon connected with Keselowski, and crashed him as a result. In real time, Majors told Keselowski that he felt it was intentional payback and Keselowski himself indicated the same conviction.
Majors doubled down on his stance as late as Tuesday on his Dale Jr. Download podcast.
But there have been a lot of conversations since the race ended on Sunday. It started with Buescher calling Dillon shortly after the race ended.
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“I reached out to Austin when I got to the airport,” Buescher said. “I just wanted him to know that I didn’t know what happened ahead of us at the time, and I didn’t know what happened between him and Brad later, either, at the moment. I just told him, ‘Look, that was not intentional.’ I said, ‘I don’t know exactly what happened and why there was a check-up, but it was a wild moment.’ I don’t know who hit pit road and caused all the stack-up. I shouldn’t say caused because it was just a racing deal, but when it got to be that way I had a run under Austin because he was one that had to move up the hill and I just told him that once I realized my run wasn’t going anywhere, because I had to pull down low too, got a little sideways and I said I was just literally trying to get back in line to get back in the draft. We’re good.
“I’m just going to let my position be known and let him know that there was nothing intentional or anything in that moment, that we were just racing and sorry I got caught up in it. That’s the only thing I’ve had with him and we were fine at the end of it, but I didn’t realize what went down in the moment. It was a chaotic corner I know that and it led to a chaotic straightaway.”
Dillon echoed that conversation.
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“Yeah, Buescher texted me right after the race and then I texted Brad and we both chatted,” Dillon said. “I mean, I think he understood after I explained things to him that it wasn’t intentional. Things just happened and it was quick and fast, and the apron at Nashville’s not fun, and everybody that touched the rear bumper last weekend got turned. So just unfortunate events.”
Dillon says even Majors was receptive when they spoke.
“He said he was better after he took a day,” Dillon said.
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Keselowski was kind of reserved when asked about that call.
“Yeah, just there was a lot going on the racetrack at one time in both incidents, it’s fair to say,” he said of his conversation with Dillon.
So, does Keselowski still believe there was a degree of retaliation?
“I think he was intending to make my life difficult and it went wrong and he ended up crashing me.”
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