CONCORD, N.C. -- When one driver retaliates against another, rarely does the driver who gets the worse end of the deal end up smiling. Even more rarely do both drivers smile.
But there was Kyle Larson, smiling as he talked following the NASCAR All-Star Race, which included a tangle with Joey Logano late in the event Saturday night at Charlotte Motor Speedway. Logano, in tap-dancing around whether he wrecked Larson on purpose, also couldn't help but grin.
Larson and Logano were battling for fourth when Larson pitched him into the wall. After he came off the wall, Logano turned Larson into the grass.
"He shouldn't have fenced me," Logano said.
Larson took the blame for the first part of the accident.
"I tried to be as much in the gas as I could, and I got really tight," Larson said. "I tried to bail, and I think he tried to leave me as much room as he could, and he got into the wall and got mad at me and retaliated.
"It is what it is. Neither of us were going to win, but ... it's whatever."
Then Larson smiled, a strange reaction after his seventh-place finish.
"I mean, I put myself in that spot," Larson said. "He maybe over-exaggerated a little bit, but yeah, I put myself in that spot."
Logano was slightly coy when asked if it was pure retaliation.
"I got all tangled up off the wall, and I'm loose, and I'm sideways here and there -- and there he is," Logano said. "What do you want me to do?"
Like Larson, Logano couldn't hold back smiling as he talked.
"After he fenced me, I bounced off, and he happened to be there," Logano said. "He probably shouldn't have fenced me."