Did You Notice?… As the regular season comes to a close this week, the NASCAR grid feels filled with frustration? One off week in a nine-month stretch leaves little time for open wounds to heal.
A lack of personal space between competitors added to thousands of miles logged on track has equaled frayed tempers and intentional contact. NASCAR’s summer sizzled with the “Boys will be Boys” moments the sport seems to long for; it just hasn’t been happening near the front of the field, leading to less coverage of what could be attention-grabbing headlines under the right circumstances.
But that hasn’t stopped the anger from boiling over. While we await the Russian Roulette finale at Daytona International Speedway, polishing off our postseason field, here are five feuds simmering that threaten to pull some punches of their own over the next five months.
John Hunter Nemechek vs. Cody Ware
This duo found themselves bumping heads at Richmond Raceway this past weekend. It all started when JHN made contact with Ware on lap 192, sending the No. 51 around for a harmless loop.
Ware immediately tried to get even. On the ensuing restart, before a multi-car wreck happened in front of him, the No. 51 spent multiple laps trying to spin out the No. 42.
While Ware declined comment to Frontstretch after the race, a disgusted Nemechek felt compelled to repost Ware’s in-car camera feed Monday (Aug. 18) to show just how badly he was beaten up from behind.
“OK. We got that out of the way with the No. 42,” a voice on the radio, presumably Ware’s spotter Brent Wentz, says. “Just mind your business… (Ware bumps JHN again under caution) We already did it. We already did it! Watch that. We’re going to end up wrecking ourselves!”
Then, what’s heard is: “Gonna knock some cars out of this race early.”
Neither Nemechek nor Ware wound up with a good night at the track. Ware was three laps down in 32nd, the latest catastrophe in a season where he’s posted just one top-15 result (13th at Atlanta in June) to go with a series-low 30.1 average finish. Nemechek ran even worse, clocking in his worst performance of the season in 36th.
There’s no love lost between these drivers or their teams: Legacy Motor Club is currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the Wares over a potential charter sale gone wrong. It feels like the Wares are winding down their driver/owner NASCAR relationship while Nemechek is playing for nothing more than pride at this point (barring a miracle drive at Daytona). That leads to a chance this one could get interesting again at one of the playoff short tracks (Bristol? Martinsville?) as we go forward.
Tyler Reddick vs. Daniel Suarez
Here’s another recent feud sparked from Richmond. Reddick’s postseason spot is suddenly a little less secure after some inadvertent contact from Suarez’s No. 99 (via Ty Gibbs’ No. 54) left Reddick spinning, then limping around the rest of the race.
It cost Reddick 28 points on his lead over Alex Bowman in the point standings, currently the last two drivers in the NASCAR playoff field. A new winner at Daytona plus another Reddick wreck could leave him vulnerable to being passed by Bowman (who’s now just 29 points behind) and out of the postseason one year after reaching the Championship 4.
Naturally, that’s left Reddick, Richmond’s stage one winner, a little unhappy after leaving as the night’s big loser.
“Daniel just got impatient,” Reddick told Frontstretch. “And just knocked the No. 54 (Gibbs) out of the way, and that’s what took us out.
“Unfortunately, I thought I had a feeling that’s what was going to happen. I was just hoping that more respect was going to be given. But he went in there, he moved the No. 54. I don’t know if he meant for it to wreck me but nonetheless, I feel like, time and time again, Daniel’s done that type of thing … worst case scenario, we can thank Daniel Suarez for that.”
Suarez, meanwhile, isn’t apologizing for anything: he’s auditioning for a Cup ride as the odd man out at Trackhouse Racing in 2026. His seventh-place finish at Richmond, on the heels of a seventh at Watkins Glen, marked the first time he’s earned back-to-back top 10s all season.
It’s rare to see Reddick that fired up about something. If the No. 45 team somehow misses the playoffs, this one has the potential to explode.
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. vs. Carson Hocevar
It’s easy to forget Stenhouse, as the driver of a single-car team, was firmly in playoff position on points after the Coca-Cola 600. It was two ugly wrecks with Carson Hocevar — first at Nashville, then at Mexico City — which wiped out all momentum in June and sent the No. 47 HYAK Motorsports team tumbling down into irrelevance.
But no one forgets the way Stenhouse confronted Hocevar in Mexico, irate over the way Hocevar’s aggression often ends up leaving his rivals on a tow truck.
“I’m going to beat your ass,” Stenhouse said. “You’re a lap down. You’ve got nothing to do. Why did you run right into me? Second time… I don’t give a damn… I would beat your ass. When we get back to the states.”
There’s plenty of people licking their chops to go after Hocevar. But of all the incidents the No. 77 has been embroiled in this year, this one feels like the rivalry where someone actually punches back.
Why? Hocevar has some fear of Stenhouse: he actually offered apologies in the moment, unlike some of his other run-ins that have turned into him playing offense on social media. Perhaps that’s because he knows Stenhouse has a history of following through on his threats. Just ask Kyle Busch.
Joey Logano vs. Ross Chastain
If defending Cup champion Logano has someone to watch out for come playoff time, it’s Chastain. The two engaged in some heated back-and-forth drama after the two of them got together on the Chicago street course.
At first, Chastain was hit after contact from Logano. His response was to run Logano down from multiple car lengths behind to even the score, a banzai move leading to a heated post-race confrontation captured on video after the race.
“[Chastain] admitted to wrecking me on purpose,” Logano said of their post-race conversation. “Which means he should get fined because if he admitted to wrecking someone on purpose, that’s not OK. Typical Ross. He just sees red and does dumb stuff. That’s twice this year on road courses.”
What’s notable about this feud, unlike some others among those in title contention, is neither driver reached out to the other to apologize.
“His choices,” Logano said the following week at Sonoma Raceway. “I’m just going to race my car.”
“I think a lot of people [ran] into each other,” Chastain said that same weekend. “For two laps, that’s what I saw. I didn’t [feel the need for more conversation]. He definitely aired all his grievances.”
Austin Hill vs. NASCAR Xfinity Field
This one’s hard to leave off the list even though it isn’t Cup related. (And remember, Hill still has a few spot Cup starts to go, including the Bristol night race).
It takes a special type of aggression to wind up suspended for a race and losing all of your playoff points accumulated throughout the season. Yet that’s where we are with Hill after this ugly incident with Aric Almirola at Indianapolis Motor Speedway last month.
Hill promptly took one week off and … delivered this gem of an incident at Watkins Glen upon his return.
“What the heck is that guy doing?” the radio buzzes about Hill after the incident. “Why would he do that?”
The response: “You know who he is.”
Hill responded to the latest incident with his typical defense: “That’s just racing.”
“Two guys going for it,” Hill said about the contact with Michael McDowell. “Nothing malicious. As much as everybody wants to sit there and make it more than it is, it’s just two guys racing it out … I had a fast run off the carousel, and I thought I was going to catch him off guard to get to his left side. I was definitely to his left side when we made contact … and I had already lifted a little bit … didn’t want to come back from what we had going on the last two weeks and have this happen, but that’s just racing.”
As the media pushed, Hill got more frustrated.
“I did lift,” Hill said. “I just didn’t lift enough. If you want to get in the racecar, have a spin, figure out why I did or didn’t lift … go for it.”
But as Frontstretch has talked with other drivers about Hill’s aggression throughout the season, a common theme has emerged: apologies aren’t enough, especially when some of these smaller, independent teams wind up with cars destroyed because of Hill’s bad behavior. Losing a shot at a championship (with the loss of all the playoff points) may be punishment enough for NASCAR but it wouldn’t be surprising if one of the many drivers he’s angered over the course of the year chooses to get even.
Did You Notice? … Quick hits before taking off…
- Congrats to Matt Crafton on an incredible Craftsman Truck Series career: 15 wins, three championships and 25 full-time seasons in the same third-tier division, one he’ll retire from after 2025. He’s the last of a dying breed; the Justin Allgaiers and Craftons of the world are being replaced by too many pay-to-plays everywhere. My favorite Crafton memory is a weird one: his winless title run in 2019, the last of his three championships. I’ll never forget him up on stage at the presser, responding to the criticism by saying, “I’m going to sleep really good all winter long with this trophy.”
- After Austin Dillon’s win at Richmond, a scenario exists where he has twice as many wins as Alex Bowman at Hendrick Motorsports the last two seasons, then winds up in this year’s playoffs while Bowman doesn’t. Another scenario? Bowman knocks out Reddick from the postseason … the very driver that might wind up turning around, seeking free agency based on the 23XI Racing lawsuit and pursued for that very No. 48 ride by the Hendrick organization in 2026. Bonkers how racing works sometimes.
Follow Tom Bowles on X at @NASCARBowles
The author of Did You Notice? (Wednesdays) Tom spends his time overseeing Frontstretch’s 40+ staff members as its majority owner and Editor-in-Chief. Based outside Philadelphia, Bowles is a two-time Emmy winner in NASCAR television and has worked in racing production with FOX, TNT, and ESPN while appearing on-air for SIRIUS XM Radio and FOX Sports 1's former show, the Crowd Goes Wild. He most recently consulted with SRX Racing, helping manage cutting-edge technology and graphics that appeared on their CBS broadcasts during 2021 and 2022.
You can find Tom’s writing here, at CBSSports.com and Athlonsports.com, where he’s been an editorial consultant for the annual racing magazine for 15 years.