Brenden Queen has now seen the replay from the Thanksgiving Classic and he wouldn’t change a thing about how he defeated Josh Berry and Kaden Honeycutt.
At least in real time, Honeycutt wishes Queen would have changed some of it, but that could be the bitterness of defeat talking.
The final 25 laps of the season ending Late Model Stock spectacular at Southern National Motorsports Park was some of the most dramatic short track racing imaginable. There were back-and-forth bump-and-runs between Queen and Berry.
That allowed Honeycutt to charge from third to eventually take Queen and Berry three-wide and to the lead. Queen put the bumper to Honeycutt and never relinquished the lead.
Honeycutt was peeved in the moment.
“I caught those two and I don’t know what the heck he was doing there with Josh,” Honeycutt said. “He was all over the place and I think it was because he was chasing Josh up the race track. As soon as I got underneath him, Josh didn’t do anything wrong, but Brenden drove right through me in Turn 1. That was it. I couldn’t get back to him. I tried to get back to him but that’s all I had.
“I hate that every time I race someone at the end of the race, they choose to use me up and run right through me. There’s nothing else I can say about that. I’m not going to be as nice next year. It’s the way I am. I’ve gotten raced this way by four or five guys like this in this race and drive me so dirty.”
Queen was aware of all the ways Honeycutt objected and said he would go back and watch the replay to see if he needed to apologize for anything.
What did he learn by Monday?
“I don’t regret anything,” Queen said. “I don’t know why he was upset with me. I know he made some comments that Josh didn’t do anything and it was just me running him up to the fourth groove. We were mutually using each other and mutually using the brake to keep each other from crossing each other up. That was all hard, good racing.
“Honeycutt took us three wide there and may have barely touched me, maybe barely not but when I ended up in the middle, I barely got into his left side into Turn 1 but I ran on the apron trying to stay off him.
“Nothing big, just a wiggle and he said I drove through him but I really don’t know how you drive through someone on their left side. And no one crashed. I’m sure we’ll talk about and I know he’s frustrated he didn’t win. I’m a racer and I would have expected him to do the same thing.”
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