Kyle Busch Gets Hammered by Wallace: Snowball Derby Recap

The 45th annual Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla. did not go as planned for NASCAR star Kyle Busch, as first he was out-dueled by 16-year-old Erik Jones in the last 20 laps of the race, and had a hammer hurled toward his pit by fellow driver Steve Wallace.

The huge Snowball Derby crowd gave Bush a smattering of boos during the driver introductions, and the fans turned against him in a big way when he spun out leader T.J. Reaid on lap 158.

The crash led to a pile-up that involved Chase Elliot, Bubba Pollard and Ross Kenseth.

Track officials made Busch go to the back of the field for the incident. Speed51.com reported, “The race officials felt that Busch went above and beyond a "normal" racing incident with his contact with Reaid.”

The announcement led to one of the largest ovations of the day from the Snowball Derby crowd.

Reaid was interviewed shortly after the wreck over the PA system and said, "I guess he got pissed off when I beat him on the restart and then he f---ing cried."

Busch did not let the penalty affect him, and by lap 270 he was back up to third place, but 16-year-old Jones was starting to pull away from the field.

A caution at lap 275 brought many of the leaders into the pits. Busch’s crew was the quickest, and there was a new leader, with Jones running second and Jeff Choquette third off pit row.

Jones' team had a tire get away from them on their pit stop, losing enough time on pit row to drop him out of the lead.

When the green flag dropped there were just 19 laps to go and it looked as if the race belonged to Busch.

However, just two laps later Jones got to Busch and passed him, and the two battled neck and neck through the next few laps, scraping paint and getting right under the bumpers a couple of times.

On lap 292 Jones pulled in front of Busch and got some clearance while Busch was getting caught by Choquette.

By lap 296 Jones had opened up a two car length lead while Busch had Choquette squarely in his rear view mirror. The crowd was worked up into a frenzy as it looked like Jones was finally going to pull away from Busch.

And that is exactly what happened, with Choquette nailing Busch for second with two laps to go.

Shortly after the race, T.J. Reaid was at Busch’s window, no doubt looking for an explanation on why Busch spun him out, and he did not look happy.

Earlier, an upset Steve Wallace hurled a hammer toward the pit of Kyle Busch. Speed51 tweeted: “Tempers hot as @stevewallace66 throws a hammer at @KyleBusch pit.”

Jones became the second consecutive 16-year-old to win the premier short track race in the U.S. Chase Elliot, the son of NASCAR great Bill Elliot, won last year’s running.

Jones led 123 of the 300 laps.

Driver Daniel Hemrick took a hard hit after a tire blew and was taken to a local hospital. His crew reported on Facebook:

"

After a hard hit during the Snowball Derby Daniel was transported to the hospital for further evaluation. All tests have come back positive and they will keep him overnight for standard precaution. Daniel is in good spirits and says thank you to everyone for their well wishes and concerns it means more than you could imagine. Also congrats to Erik Jones on his victory.

"

UNOFFICIAL SNOWBALL DERBY RESULTS 

1	4 J	Erik Jones	300
2	29 C	Jeff Choquette	300
3	51	Kyle Busch	300
4	67	Jeff Fultz	300
5	9	Chase Elliott	300
6	36	Grant Enfinger	300
7	71	Kyle Benjamin	300
8	77	David Ragan	300
9	41	Chris Davidson	300
10	8	John Hunter Nemechek	300
11	25	Ross Kenseth	300
12	45	Dwayne Buggay	300
13	2	D.J. Vanderley	300
14	10	Johanna Long	300
15	2 W	Donnie Wilson	300
16	22	Hunter Robbins	299
17	7	Chuck Barnes Jr	299
18	84	Clay Alexander	297
19	21 J	Kyle Jones	283
20	29 T	Austin Theriault	249
21	99S	Casey Smith	228
22	66	Steven Wallace	226
23	11	David Rogers	226
24	96	Ben Kennedy	221
25	0	Brad Rogers	201
26	41 R	T.J. Reaid	164
27	26	Bubba Pollard	158
28	5	Nelson Piquet Jr	125
29	98	Daniel Hemric	125
30	11 B	Logan Boyett	125
31	1	Mike Garvey	123
32	51	Stephen Nasse	117
33	4	Jeremy Pate	116
34	20	Brian Campbell	112
35	10 K	Paul Kelley	45
36	49	Augie Grill	38
37	10 D	Steve Dorer	1