Steven Wallace and Mason Mingus were involved in a mid-race physical altercation on Saturday during the North-South Showdown at Fairgrounds Speedway Nashville.
The ordeal began on the track, on Lap 11, when contact from Wallace sent Mingus into the wall in Turns 3 and 4. The pair had been racing hard for several laps before the caution, leading to Wallace to spin Mingus. Race control decided the contact was intentional and parked Wallace for the remainder of the event.
Mingus confronted Wallace in the pit area and a fight broke out, in which the second half was captured on video by long-time ARCA radio broadcaster Tim Clagg.
Huge fight in the garage at @FGSpeedway between steve Wallace and wauters. Here’s the video!!! pic.twitter.com/HR6LjNTUYN
— Tim Clagg (@Clagger01) April 7, 2018
In a statement released on Twitter, Mingus admitted that he started the physical confrontation, even if the video didn’t capture it from the beginning.
“Steve Wallace got into me four or five times trying to pass me early in the race and once he got around me I got him loose to warn him and I drove back past him. Getting into the next corner he blatantly wrecked me. He has a reputation of repeatedly wrecking people at every race he is at and it is getting ridiculous and something needed to be done.
“Following the on-track incident Steve Wallace was black flagged for rough driving by series officials. That sent Wallace to the pit area along with Mingus. I applaud the race directors for for doing the right thing and parking him but at some point their needs to be further punishment. I waited until he was exiting the tunnel heading to his hauler before I jumped on his golf cart and did what I hope will make him think twice about continuing to wreck people.
“I normally hold myself to a higher standard than to run around starting pit fights but sooner or later someone is going to get hurt due to his reckless driving. I haven’t taken a hit in a race car that hard in a long time and if Richie Wauters didn’t build such quality race cars and put so much emphasis on safety, I could have been injured.
“I haven’t received anything but ‘thank yous’ and praise for what I did because everyone has been a victim to Steven Wallace at some point.”
Meanwhile, Wallace’s wife, Tarah allegedly got hit in the incident, something the veteran driver says set him off even further.
“To clear the air what happened on track happened !!!!! The real story is I got jumped by a back marker team and was defending my team member in the crappy video and to top it off some POS hit my wife in the face and that my friends is how a war starts.”
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Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.
Bailme
April 9, 2018 at 11:10 pm
I wanna see video of him crashing him but you all know if a man will wreck his own uncle at Daytona he will wreck anyone. I’ve seen steven at the snowball Derby one year at the Wednesday pre race party they put on every year dragging a porter Jon around the track tipped over with a golf cart drunker then Hell pulling it his dad had to pay for it or they was gonna charge him for it. And watched him at fast eddies in Pensacola a go cart track coming at people head on wide open they kicked him plum off the property. That kid don’t care at all and most think he lost his ride in Busch series now xfinity no nascar took it from him.