NASCAR: It sure sounds like Chase Elliott flipped the bird to Clint Bowyer at Dover

Because sometimes, the most time-honored way to express your displeasure with someone is the best, even when you are in the middle of a NASCAR race.

Somewhat understandably lost in amid the excitement over Chase Elliott winning last weekend at Dover, locking himself into the next round of the NASCAR Playoffs, was the fact that Clint Bowyer, the mayor of the NASCAR garage and generally a pretty easygoing type, got upset enough with him to call Elliott an “(expletive) punk” on the radio.

What gives?

Apparently, Elliott was upset at Bowyer from something that transpired the previous week at the ROVAL. As FTW tells us, Chase got on the radio before the halfway point of the Gander Outdoors 400 with this complaint:

"I’m not sure why (Bowyer) just thinks he can run over us. Did it last week too."

Elliott’s spotter, Eddie D’Hondt, gently suggested that maybe he should stand up for himself and spin Bowyer out. Instead, it appears the man about to be named Most Popular Driver decided to give him the one-finger salute instead.

That would provide the proper context for Bowyer’s full rant:

"Tell that (expletive) punk if he wants to flip me off, I’ll see him after the race! Stick that finger straight up his (expletive)!"

If you need the pressure of NASCAR Cup Series playoff racing in a nutshell, that would be it. The photogenic, nice guy future face of the sport and one of the most likable veterans in the garage, trading curses and middle fingers — and on an afternoon where one of them won the race and the other was having an excellent run until some late misfortune.

(Though it’s at least possible that Bowyer’s mechanical issue was due to contact with Elliott, it wasn’t clear that was the case.)

We still don’t endorse flipping anyone the bird in everyday driving situations, but this goes to show you that the stars of NASCAR are human too. There’s no misconstruing the sentiment behind the middle finger, and regardless of who thought they were in the right, it probably wasn’t very hard for Bowyer to understand that Elliott was upset with him.

And now we know to watch to see if anything comes through the window net from the 9 or 14, just in case …