Brad Lewis is still upset with Zack and Kyler Staley’s actions that resulted in suspensions at Bowman Gray Stadium in the Street Stock division on Saturday night.
On the last lap of the race, a slow Zack Staley was in front of Brad while he and Kyler Staley battled for the win. Brad won the race in a photo finish and after the race, Emilee Lewis, daughter of Brad, wrecked Zack. Zack is suspended for the rest of the season, Kyler is suspended for three weeks, and Emilee is suspended for one week.
Read more: Zack and Kyler Staley react to suspensions
Brad was in a perilous situation off of turn four, with Kyler to his inside and Zack directly in front of him. He made the move to go to the middle to avoid rear ending Zack and making contact with Kyler, giving him the win.
“I seen [Zack] coming off [Turn] 4,” Brad said. “I didn’t hear the spotter but I could see him. I read the article [where he said he] had no brakes, but if you don’t have any brakes I think you should stay to the inside or stay in the pits. [He’s] past the start finish line, and I get that, but if I don’t let out and I hit you at full speed somebody’s going to get hurt.
“[His] game plan was to impede my process of winning the race. I made the decision to shoot the gap. There was a little hole and I shot the gap. Kyler was there, and he don’t think that was right and I don’t believe it was right to stay on the outside coming to the finish. The bad thing about it is, [and] I’ve told everybody, I don’t think I would have beat Kyler [if Zack did not do that]. So I think he cost Kyler the win.”
Kyler said that he had reached out to Brad to talk to him but Brad did not want to talk. However, Brad said that he reached back out but wanted to talk face-to-face.
“I did just a couple of weeks ago go talk to Zack and we were cordial,” Brad said. “We don’t have to like each other. Men can agree to disagree and move on. What you can do is respect someone and I’m built on respect.
“I don’t think Kyler is telling the whole story there, or maybe his girlfriend hadn’t told him, but I did message his girlfriend back. I did block him. I block people on Facebook. I don’t need to know what they’re doing. I don’t care what they’re doing and they probably shouldn’t care what I’m doing. I did message his girlfriend back and I said that’s a conversation we have as men, as race car drivers, face-to-face.
“If that conversation happens, we can agree to agree, we can agree on some of it, and agree to disagree on the rest of it. I’m there to win races. I’m not going to just stop coming down the frontstretch because your dad is on the outside.
“I ran him clean, and it wasn’t because Zack made a statement that he was going to trash cars. I raced him clean because that’s always the way I wanted to [race] him. He said the week before [that] I turned right and turned him; I was to his door. He’s turning left. It may look like I turned right but I didn’t. I slammed on the brakes because I seen him coming [down] and my goal was to let him win. If I was going to drive through him I would have stayed in it. I didn’t. I promise you. I’m a man of my word.
“The whole thing that I won’t talk to him, that’s not true. I’ll talk to him. But I’m not going to give him my phone number. I’m smarter than that. I’ll talk face-to-face at the track or wherever. I’ll talk to him like a man. I’ll hear his side and he’ll hear my side and we’ll move on. I think that’s the way it should be. I think he should take some lessons from that and look in the mirror and admit your wrongs.”
Brad said that after the race, he had to look back and watch a replay to see everything that happened. He was trying to make sure Kyler did not do anything to damage his car and was not happy with the way things were handled after the checkered flag.
“I had to see video after the race,” Brad said. “I’m in protect mode when I’m over there. I won the race. Kyler was upset that I doored him, but his dad being in my lane caused that. I wasn’t going to give him the chance to trash my car. I didn’t know what he would do. I’m not saying he would have done it, but I wasn’t going to give him the chance. He got out of his car so I took off.
“Zack was sitting down there in the corner – I didn’t know what happened to him. I’m not going to go in front of him. We’ve all watched videos at Bowman Gray. You have to be smart about what you do. I come up [to the frontstretch] and I see people laying around and jumping on cars.
“In the end, I saw it in a quote from Flo[Racing], somebody’s going to get hurt real bad. And I ain’t talking about somebody fighting I’m talking about somebody’s going to get hit by a car. Somebody’s going to gas up when they grab a hold of a car. It could be death. That’s the last thing I want to see.
“It takes one moment to change a person’s life [and] all their loved ones’ lives. There needs to be some consequences for what’s going on over there. You can’t keep doing it and apologizing for it. That don’t make it better. We have to learn from our mistakes and stop all the antics. I get it. It’s Bowman Gray. Drama sells. But that’s the wrong kind of drama. It’s out of hand. I’ve voiced my opinion with several people and we’ll see how far it goes.”
“These people and these fans have took the fun out of racing. They want to paint the picture of only what they see. These fans – I appreciate their passion, but leave that at the track. Don’t contact other families or racers’ families. It’s out of hand. Will it ever stop? Probably not, because that’s the world we live in, it’s built off of drama. Lewis Family Racing is not built off of drama.”
The next race for Bowman Gray will be a double points night on July 12, featuring the Traffic Control Safety Services 100 for the Modifieds, as well as Sportsman, Street Stock, and Stadium Stock divisions.
Emilee Lewis could not be reached at the time of this press.
thomas farmer
July 3, 2025 at 10:09 pm
Great article