Why Bruce, Grady and Wilson Left Langley’s CARS Race Frustrated

A series of moments led to a four-car crash and some bruised feelings on Saturday night in the CARS Tour race at Langley Speedway.

Cole Bruce spun off the nose of Andrew Grady on Lap 86 with Dylon Wilson, Carson Brown and Landon Huffman all piling in. At the time of the caution, Wilson was on the outside when making corner entry and could only spin before colliding into the second-generation Bruce racer.

Huffman piled in last.

https://twitter.com/FloRacing/status/1665173614306394112

But Bruce was especially mad at Wilson, believing the contact could have been avoided, needing to be forcefully escorted off the track by series president Jack McNelly.

“We were running somewhere in the top-15, I don’t know, he kept door slamming me,” Bruce said. “We’re racing hard, don’t get me wrong but I feel like we shouldn’t have been that aggressive given the position we were in. At the end of the day, it sucks, because it’s our first CARS Tour event and we wanted to have a good showing. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that.

“Now we have a wrecked race car that we need to fix before next weekend. I’ve known Grady for awhile, man. I feel like I understand moving someone, a bump-and-run, but that was a flat-out dump. I haven’t watched the replay but people have told me that he pretty much never lifted. I’m more mad with (Wilson) because he had so much time to slow down. He could have slowed down and went to the bottom. Now it sucks because me and dad have a car to put back together. I don’t have a lot of daddy’s money to come out here with and go race. We’re doing good with what we have but we don’t have the blank check to hand to a team and they’ll fix it. It sucks. …

“I just don’t understand why Dylon Wilson, I guess it was, did that. I hated to make an ass of myself on TV but I was frustrated. He could have preserved himself instead of taking us both out at the same time.”

Bruce was a talking point amongst several of his peers after the race on Saturday as numerous drivers said they were chopped-off by him as he sank through the field and tried to get back to the bottom lane. Grady says he was chopped off one too many times and that his friend eventually paid for it.

“When you come into this series, you’re expected to race with a certain level of respect,” Grady said. “Sometimes, we don’t always give it to each other, but we were not even 30 laps into a race and you’re stuffing guys into the fence, running them into the grass and turning us sideways. When a man is to your door, you can’t hook a left six times and expect him to keep letting him turn a left. I was to his door. I know Cole, he is a good kid and I like him, but I don’t know if he was trying to prove he belongs, but he made a lot of people mad today, man. You can’t come into this series and race this way. That’s not how we race and hopefully he learned his lesson tonight.”

For his part, Wilson immediately pulled-up in-car footage that showed how helpless his scenario was between the late caution and his commitment to the outside with no hole on the bottom.

“A group us were still trying to save, and I was about to tuck-in behind (Bryant Barnhill) in 3, and I heard they were wrecking,” Wilson said. “I started to check-up and give (Barnhill) room but then I see (Bruce) slide up the hill and I’m just along for the ride at that point.

Just a bad time to be stuck on the top. pic.twitter.com/JB1OFIr9PR

— Dylon Wilson (@dylonwilson) June 4, 2023

“I hate it because I’ve never done shit like that, but I got into the slick stuff and tried to lock it down and not T-bone someone. I don’t know if he was trying to fight or whatever that was. He asked why I killed his car. He said that I suck and its why I run 30th. I understand the frustration, I do, because I hate tearing up race cars. We’re in big trouble now too. I hate the little bit of fireworks, I said let’s save that for later, this ain’t no place for that.”

At the end of the day, Grady was just adamant that Bruce, who again is a friend, just can’t force his way to the bottom when his car started to fade the way it did.

“He put me in the fence, he put Pierce in the fence, he put Bassett in the fence, who else,” Grady said. “I understand he was racing hard. I’m good with that. When we’re battling for 12th and we’re tearing body panels off, we’re not going to do that. We can beat and bang, that’s racing but we’re not going to be doing that for 12th.”

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