Daniel Suárez throws water bottle at William Byron, promises on-track revenge

“Tell the [expletive] 24 that I’m going to get him back.”

Welcome to FTW’s NASCAR Feud of the Week, where we provide a detailed breakdown of the latest absurd, funny and sometimes legitimate controversies and issues within the racing world.

This weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Martinsville Speedway was fairly entertaining — even if the first few laps happened Saturday night while the race finished up Sunday afternoon because of weather.

And aside from Martin Truex Jr. becoming the first repeat winner of the season — winning his third grandfather clock in the last four races at the iconic track — perhaps the best moment of the race involved a huge, parking-lot style wreck, a car on fire and a water bottle flying through the air above the short track.

The latest feud of the week between Daniel Suárez and William Byron seems like a pretty simple and kind of a hilarious one. So let’s get right to it.

Daniel Suárez’s struggles began before the race did

All things considered, Suárez was having a decent race. Behind the wheel of the No. 99 Trackhouse Racing Chevrolet, Suárez had to start at the back of the field after his team was penalized during pre-race inspections (his crew chief was ejected for the race too). But he worked his way up from the back, and by the third and final stage of the 500-lap race, Suárez was up flirting with the top-10.

The No. 99 car was running on the outside just ahead of Byron in the No. 24 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet when Bryon appeared to make contact with Suárez’s bumper. That sent the No. 99 car up the track and into the wall, and Suárez lost several positions because of it.

Not long after that contact, a massive wreck unfolded out of Turn 2 on the backstretch, collecting several cars, including Suárez’s. This video shows both the contact between Byron and Suárez, as well as the huge, 12-car crash that quickly followed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oCLZwj3bjM

William Byron apologizes, but Daniel Suárez promises revenge

After the contact between the No. 24 and No. 99, Byron said on his team’s radio (just before the three-minute mark in the video below):

“You can tell that 99, ‘Sorry.'”

But Byron’s spotter, Tad Boyd, responded saying he shouldn’t be sorry for that move.

Whether or not Suárez received Byron’s apology, he wasn’t happy in that moment and had a message of his own.

Suárez: “Tell the [expletive] 24 that I’m going to get him back.”

Steve Barkdoll, spotter: “10-4. We owe him one big.”

And these two teams weren’t the only ones to comment on the incident. Via RACER magazine’s Kelly Crandall:

Daniel Suárez’s car caught fire, and his day was done

Arguably triggered by Bryon bumping Suárez out of the way, Suárez was in the wrong place at the wrong time when this short-track “big one” happened, and he was unable to continue racing. Which makes sense because flames were flying out of his car.

Thankfully, Suárez was able to get out of his fiery car and was OK. But before he left the car and the track, he chucked his water bottle at Byron in the No. 24 as he passed by.

Not that the tiny amount of water would have extinguished the flames coming from his car, but it’s pretty funny that rather than vainly tossing that water on the fire, Suárez opted to throw it at Byron. (It’s not the first time a Hendrick Motorsports driver has had a beverage thrown at him at a race.)

What Daniel Suárez had to say after his race-ending wreck

After being cleared by the infield care center following the crash, Suárez blamed Byron for forcing him into being in the wrong place at the wrong time. In an interview with FOX Sports, he explained what happened from his perspective in the wreck before shifting to the No. 24 team.

Suárez said:

“In that wreck, it’s nothing really I could do. I was trying to slam on the brakes to try to slow down, but it was a parking lot in there. I couldn’t do anything about it. The No. 24 car put us in that position. He pushed me out of the way. I had a few laps older tires than everyone else. …

“This weekend, overall, wasn’t great. We came from the back several times. We had a fast car, but we made bad adjustments, bad calls from the spotter a few times. It just wasn’t a clean weekend.”

Unable to continue racing, Suárez was handed a 32nd-place finish. Byron came in fourth.

And the NASCAR world will just have to wait and see if Suárez has since moved on from this incident or if he’ll follow through with some on-track revenge.

The next NASCAR Cup Series race is the Toyota Owners 400 at Richmond Raceway on Sunday (3 p.m. ET, FOX).

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